Ruby Tom was born in Hong Kong on April 24, 1924, and is 99 years young! She lived in Hong Kong until she was 12 years old, when her family returned to their village in China. Ruby recalls great memories of school in Hong Kong and China. While living in the Guangzhou Province, Ruby met her husband, Edward Tom. They were introduced by her sister and her sister’s husband as they both lived on the same street. They migrated to the U.S. in 1948, where they settled in San Jose. They then moved to Wyoming to help her father-in-law’s restaurant business, and later returned to the Bay Area. While her husband worked in a grocery store, Ruby worked as a seamstress for the Roughrider Men’s Jeans Factory. They then moved to Napa, where they opened a Mom and Pop grocery store, Tom’s Market. In the early 1980s, the Toms retired and moved to Sacramento, where they doted on their grandchildren. Edward passed away in January 2018.
Ruby has three wonderful daughters, Gail, Dale, and Alice, son Raymond, four grandchildren, and three great grandchildren. Ruby is very independent, according to her daughter Gail. For decades, Ruby walked daily along the canal at Portuguese Park, where she caught up with old friends and made new friends. Ruby plays mahjong at ACC three times a week and enjoys the social interaction with all her friends. When you stop by ACC, you can see everyone having a great time, smiling, and laughing in between the serious playing of the mahjong tiles. She and her daughters are grateful for ACC and for the many activities they offer to the community’s senior citizens. The initiative, effort, and foresight of super volunteers like Linda Fong and Jo Fong is the reason there is a mahjong club. It offers a place that is welcoming, warm, inviting, inclusive and positive.
Gail shared that Ruby is known for her vegetable gardening. Ruby has a “green thumb” as she grows long beans, winter melon, zucchini, tomatoes, and cucumbers. All the right vegetables for living a long life. Ruby says she is grateful and appreciative for the people in her life.
Ruby values her recognition by ACC as a centenarian and proudly displays her key to the city and letter from Congresswoman Doris Matsui on her living room mantel next to her husband’s Congressional Medal of Honor.
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