Nancy Nan-hwa Wu

Nancy Nan-hwa Wu, passed away at the age of 89 on the morning of March 13, 2009 with her family by her side. She was born on October 1, 1919 in Jiujiang, a port city near the lower reach of the Yangtze River, in Jiangsi Province, China. She was an outstanding woman who overcame many difficulties to lead a successful life of helping others.

Her mother, a college-educated schoolteacher, believed in the equality of women and men. Her father, an architect, met her mother when they taught at the same school. They both encouraged and supported her education. She lost her dear mother and two of her brothers to illness when she was only 12 years old, but she persevered in school, remembering her mother's advice to study hard and become self-sufficient. Passing the college entrance exams for medical school, she left home to attend schools in Yunnan and Szechuan provinces. After graduating from medical college in 1945, as a new doctor she fulfilled her duty in the army at a veterans hospital in southwestern China. In the winter of 1949 she travelled on the ship General Gordon to the U.S. to do an internship in Quincy, Massachusetts. She had specialty training in anesthesiology in Boston and New York, and did research in Dallas, Texas. In 1957, she met Tse-tsung Chow in Boston, and they married and had two daughters, Lena and Genie. As an anesthesiologist she worked hard to help people her whole life, both in the operating room and in the pain clinic. She taught at the University of Wisconsin, School of Medicine in Madison, and at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical School in Dallas, until she retired in 1994.

Nancy loved to walk in nature, listen to classical music, enjoyed going to the opera, musicals, the symphony. She always had strong interest in art and Chinese literature. She loved traveling the world with friends, but also cherished the time spent with family. She had an abundance of spirit and her life overflowed with sincerity, goodness, and compassion for others. We will miss her very much, but will remember her forever with love and joy.

Friends and family are invited to the burial service on Sunday, August 16, 2009, at 11 a.m., at Forest Hill Cemetery, 1 Speedway Road, Madison, Wisconsin 53705, and afterwards for refreshments at Cress Funeral Home, 3610 Speedway Rd., Madison.