Product Code Database
Soong Ai-ling (; July 15, 1889 – October 20, 1973), legally Soong E-ling or Eling Soong, Christian name Nancy, was a Chinese businesswoman, the eldest of the Soong sisters and the wife of H. H. Kung (Kung Hsiang-Hsi), who was the richest man in the early 20th century Republic of China.
Soong Ai-ling met her future husband, Kung Hsiang Hsi, in 1913, and they married the following year in Yokohama. After marrying, Soong taught English language for a while and engaged in child welfare work.
In 1936, she founded the Sandai Company (also called Sanbu Company) and became a successful and immensely rich businesswoman in her own right.Lily Xiao Hong Lee, A. D. Stefanowska, Sue Wiles: Biographical Dictionary of Chinese Women: v. 2: Twentieth Century During the Second Sino-Japanese War, she was active in the Committee of the National Friends of the Wounded Soldiers and the National Refugee Children's Association, and chair of the local Hong Kong section of the Committee of the National Friends of the Wounded Soldiers.
The three Soong sisters made public appearances in Hong Kong in favor of relief work until 1940, when the Japanese radio stated that they would evacuate rather than join the Chinese government in Chongqing to endure the war conditions. In response to this, they left for Chongqing, where they continued to appear to boost public morale touring hospitals, air-raid shelter systems and bomb sites during the war. They founded the Indusco (also called Gungho) organization to protect Chinese industry during wartime conditions, an organization in which Soong Ai-ling was most active of the sisters.
During the later years of the war, Soong Ai-ling, her husband, and her children were accused of graft, corruption, black-marketing and war profiteering. In 1944, her husband was finally asked to step down as minister of finance. She and her husband transferred their immense wealth and business abroad and left for the US.
She died at age 84 on October 20, 1973 at New York-Presbyterian Hospital in New York City. She is interred in a mausoleum at Ferncliff Cemetery in Westchester County, New York.
|
|
