FIDDLETOWN, Calif. — This weekend will be full of California history as the state celebrates sites featuring the people who made it what it is today.
Fiddletown’s Chew Kee Store Museum is taking part in the celebrations and offering folks to see the lives of early Chinese immigrants.
“It's important to recognize history in the past, and as a youth, that's part of the future,” said Sarah Yee, a descendant of the founder. “I think that is amazing, because I hope to continue that legacy with modern medicine.”
The Granite Bay High School senior and her father David are part of living local history.
Their family is seventh generation Chinese American.
The Chew Kee Store Museum was built in 1851 by David’s great-great-great grandfather Dr. Yee Fung Cheung who immigrated from Canton, China to Fiddletown.
After settling, he established a practice as an herbal doctor and attended to the medical needs of Chinese miners and railroad workers.
He even made a “famous cure” that helped save the life of California First Lady Jane Stanford in the 1860s.
"He brewed an elixir of Ma Yong. Later they identified that agent Ma Yong is the natural ingredient for ephedrine, which is what we take when we have pulmonary congestion,” said David. “It was a perfect drug for her."
The museum is across from Fiddletown Park which will host a Chinese Mid-Autumn Festival puppet show and a Tai Chi/Qigong and Muay Thai demonstration by local instructors and students. There will also be a Fiddletown Walking Tour of a number of historical buildings.
The event will take place from noon to 4 p.m. Saturday at 14301 Fiddletown Road in Fiddletown.
More information can be found HERE.
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