Lina Quan Llacer

Longtime Staten Island resident Lina Llacer passed away in her sleep on the morning of Thursday, March 9. She was 93. Born Lintay “Lina” Quan in the southern Chinese city of Kew Keang (or “Nine Rivers”), Lina moved with her parents in the early 1920s to the island of Jolo in the Philippines, where her father’s company exported pearls from that region’s clear waters. When Lina’s father died suddenly of cholera three years later, her pregnant mother brought Lina, along with Lina’s younger sister, north to Manila, where they reestablished themselves with the help of an American pastor. Lina’s mother opened a small eatery in Pasay City outside of the Philippine capital and taught her children never to bang the pots and pans if they wanted good luck — a lesson Lina took to heart. Lina took her lessons at school to heart, too. She excelled academically. Later in life, she would sometimes recite for her grandchildren long chunks of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s epic poem “The Song of Hiawatha,” which she memorized at school during this time. When war came to Manila, Lina was forced to recite the Japanese national anthem by memory instead. Her mother fell ill with tuberculosis and died soon after World War II ended. Now an orphan at 22 and left to look after her teenaged siblings, Lina chanced upon a distant relative and old business partner of her father’s in Manila. The man recognized Lina and arranged for her to study nursing at Queen Mary Hospital in Hong Kong, and for her siblings to be cared for as well. Lina departed for Hong Kong to stay with a cousin, Chan Lau Yung, and on her first day of nursing school, April 1, 1949, Lina met classmates who would become her lifelong friends, including Daisy Pan, Helen Kan and Violet Chin. For decades afterward, they would keep up lively correspondences via both letter and postcard. At the time, however, Lina was more interested in exchanging letters with a friend she had met in Manila after the war. Francisco Lee-Llacer, a square-shouldered war veteran and survivor of the Bataan Death March, was determined to start a new life for himself as an accountant. He was equally determined to marry Lina. When Lina graduated from nursing school at the top of her class — she insisted that if she grasped the material any more quickly than her peers, it was only because she was slightly older than most of them — Francisco came to Hong Kong to meet her and proposed. Taken with his daring, Lina said yes. Francisco and Lina were wed in Hong Kong on July 26, 1952 and enjoyed a long boat ride back to Manila. Their first child, Mary Ann, was born in 1953, followed by Mary Jane in 1956, Mary Rose in 1958 and Mario Brian in 1960. During this time, Francisco’s accounting business started to take off. His first client was a new soy sauce company called Central Foods, followed by a series of furniture makers and printers. He later earned a law degree and even started a ranching business. Lina meanwhile would help administer shots as a volunteer nurse at Mary the Queen Church’s Catholic Women’s League in Manila’s Little Baguio, and for others who would come by her home. She demonstrated sterile procedure for her onlooking children and helped inspire two of them to pursue careers in medicine. After Francisco died suddenly of a heart attack in 1984, Lina split her time between Manila and the United States, where three of her children would eventually move. She volunteered for a time at Lutheran Medical Center in Brooklyn and with the Legion of Mary at Sacred Heart Church on Staten Island. In later years, Lina most enjoyed spending time with her six grandchildren, Robert, Christopher, Megan, Alfred, Andrea and Francis — all of whom she helped raise — and her great-grandson Massimo. She loved them and they loved her “two, three, four,” as she was fond of saying. Lina was predeceased by her husband Francisco Lee-Llacer, her younger sister Chun Tay “June” Choy and her younger brother Foo Wah “José” Quan, and survived by her children Mary Ann Naef, Mary Jane Lacist, Mary Rose Lee-Llacer of Staten Island and Mario Brian Lee-Llacer. Visitation is scheduled from 2 to 5 p.m. and 7 to 9 p.m. on Wednesday, March 15 at John Vincent Scalia Home for Funerals, located at 28 Eltingville Blvd. in Eltingville. A funeral mass is scheduled for 10 a.m. on Thursday, March 16 at the Church of St. Rita, located at 281 Bradley Ave.

Lina Quan Llacer

December 24, 1923 - March 9, 2017