Franklin Fong-Ming Lee, July 15, 1934-September 25,2005 

Franklin Fong-Ming Lee （李豐明） was born on July 15, 1934 in the southern seaport city of Kao-hsiung（高雄, Taiwan. His father, Li Chhun-siong（李春祥,1910-1988）, was an artist of “birds and flowers” in traditional Chinese watercolor. His mother, Huang（黃瑞月） was a midwife of high repute. An elder sister preceded him, and after him came 4 other siblings （one sister died at age 4 ）： thus, there were 3 sisters and 3 brothers, a most perfect Taiwanese family.  

His early childhood spanned the last years of Japan’s 50-year occupation of Taiwan, and so he attended Japanese-run schools and was strongly influenced by his Japanese teachers. At the same time, he came from a close-knit Christian family where there was much singing, laughter, and support.  

He was a boy of great leadership and excellent scholarship. He gained admission to Taiwan’s most prestigious university, National Taiwan University（國立台灣大學） , and majored in Mechanical Engineering. He taught briefly at Christ’s College before realizing his dream of coming to the United States in 1961 to continue his education. In the US, he studied Materials Science at North Carolina State University. It was here that he met another of then just a handful of students from Taiwan, a girl named Martha Yueh-hsia Chiang. Even though her surname was the same as that of Taiwan’s then martial ruler, and amidst the clamor among the other Taiwanese male students for her favor, Franklin steadily and confidently won her heart and hand in marriage. They were married on Sept. 13, 1963 in Raleigh, and immediately afterwards drove westward where they both attended Stanford University.（ 史丹福大學）  

It was at Stanford where Franklin earned his Ph. D. in Materials Science and Engineering, and also where his daughters Judy and Margaret were born. The family moved to upstate New York in 1967 with Franklin’s first job at IBM. In 1969 a son, Benjamin, was born. Franklin worked as an engineering research scientist at IBM for 10 years, at the same time also actively participating in the growing East coast Taiwanese community. When IBM downsized its upstate New York facilities in 1978, Franklin chose to accept an offer with Litton Industries and thus relocated his family across the country to Los Angeles. He was active in the much larger Taiwanese community of Los Angeles, attending the Taiwanese church and in the early 1980’s serving as founder and editor of the region’s first Taiwanese newspaper, Asia Journal. He also was a founding member of the Taiwanese American Foundation, which sought to recognize exceptional achievements of Taiwanese individuals worldwide. 

With the astounding political advances that took place in Taiwan, Franklin made increasing trips back to Taiwan in the late 1980’s. In 1992 he, and eventually Martha, moved back to Taiwan. He worked in Hsin-chu and in Kaohsiung before settling at Chinese Culture University in 1997 as Dean of the Department of Engineering. He greatly enjoyed his second career of teaching, making it a point before every lecture to teach his students a Taiwanese proverb that would have some connection to the lecture topic. Throughout their years in Taiwan, Franklin and Martha made twice-yearly visits to California to see their married children and growing numbers of grandchildren.  

He was a man of the simple pleasures of life： tennis, beer, talks, walks, books, writing, singing. His mind sparked at the thought of new ideas and inventions, of connections between his passions for Taiwan, science and technology, and his roots of Christian faith. Ever a child at heart with an insuppressible zeal for life, he looked forward to his birthday every year, especially after his diagnosis of cancer in 2002. After a most courageous three+ years fight to the end, Franklin passed on from this earth which he so loved, on to a still more wonderful place where his truly blessed life continues forevermore.