John Kwai Heen Yee, noted orchid cultivator, dead at 80
By Adrienne Ancheta
Advertiser Staff Writer
John Kwai Heen Yee, an award-winning orchid cultivator, died Friday in Honolulu. He was 80.
Yee was born in Honolulu March 9, 1921. He worked at Pearl Harbor Naval Shipyard before joining the Army, then returned to Pearl Harbor as a naval architect engineer. He retired in 1983 after 42 years.
John Kwai Heen Yee taught orchid culturing at Kapi'olani Community College, Farrington High School and elsewhere.
While working at Pearl Harbor, Yee became interested in orchids. He cultivated numerous crosses of orchids, naming them after family members, and developed a method of repotting orchids without taking them out of their pots.
After retiring, he taught orchid culturing at Kapi'olani Community College, the community school at Farrington High School, Lanakila Senior Center and Kapahulu Senior Center.
"I used to tease that orchids were his first love, so I must be his second love," said his wife, Gladys Yee.
Yee was a member of orchid societies from Kaimuki to 'Ewa Beach and helped organize the Hawai'i Kai Orchid Society, for which he served as president.
He was also involved with church and family activities, erecting a wooden mural at the Community Church of Honolulu and helping arrange weddings.
"He was a giving tree more than anything else," said daughter Jocelyn Chang.
In addition to his wife, Yee is survived by brothers Harold, Frederick and Kenneth; sisters Grace Wong and Dorothy Lum; daughters Jocelyn Chang and Pamelyn Sagawa; and six grandchildren.
Visitation begins at 8 a.m. Friday at Community Church of Honolulu, with the service at 9. Burial will follow at Diamond Head Memorial Park. No flowers. Casual attire.
Arrangements by Nuuanu Mortuary.
