Qing Ming 2025 - Revisiting Madam Toh Pow (Bukit Brown)

We helped in locating the tomb of Madam Toh Pow after a request for help came from Angelique Goh and her cousins way back in March 2023. Today we got to meet them again as they go about their Qing Ming visit to pay respects to their grandmother, Madam Toh Pow. Their family story is an example of the strength and perseverance of the women folk of their family spanning a few generations ! 

Paying respects to Madam Toh Pow (Qing Ming 2025)

Madam Toh Pow was adopted into the Lim family and eventually married a Lim son. Madam Toh Pow was industrious and worked as a amah/baby sister for an English family and subsequently at a biscuit factory. It was during this time, the family grew as well, with first an adopted daughter and subsequently more biological children of her own. Madam Toh Pow life was cut short when she passed away while in labor. Her baby boy survived but Madam Toh Pow passed away on 11 April 1940 at the age of 28 due to child birth complications.

In the coffin of Madam Toh Pow, an effigy of a baby boy placed on her chest, believed to help protect the surviving infant by giving companionship to the spirit of Madam Toh Pow in the form of that mentioned effigy (and thus to avoid any early death of the surviving infant). The coffin was a simple box that travelled in a lorry rented by a neighbor with enough space for 2 mourners to Bukit Brown. Witnessing the burial was Madam Toh Pow's husband and one of their children, their 6 year old daughter. 

After her death, things became tougher - the baby boy of the late Madam Toh Pow was given up for adoption. Her husband was sent to jail for taking part in a workers riot. For his participation, he was jailed for 2 weeks but after release, he became a changed man and aligning with the ideology of the motherland, he eventually returned to China on British Colonial sponsored ships.

I did a quick search on what was the possible riot that could have taken place post 11 April 1940 (the death date of Madam Toh Pow). I found one - the May Day Demonstration - which the British Colonial Government labelled that the root cause of it was purely a political one, Communist Propaganda. 

May Day Demonstration of 1940

With Madam Toh Pow and her husband gone, the responsibility of keeping the family intact fell on Mr. Lim's mother who stayed behind with her grandchildren rather than go back to China with her son. 

Madam Lim had also a storied life. Born in China in the 1870's or 80's. She was just 4 years old when her father made arrangements for her feet to be binded. She eventually married and from that union, 1 son before tragedy struck and she became a young widow. She became also one of the many migrants seeking a better life in Nanyang. Fastforward to 1940s, with the son back in China and with grandchildren to take care and feed, she went to farming and rearing vegetables. It was difficult times with constant struggles but somehow things through heavenly intervention turn out for the better. Constantly reminding her grandchildren of their mother (the late Madam Toh Pow) and their younger brother who was given away as infant, years later the heavens intervened again, the two brothers met one day and were surprised how alike they looked and eventually finding out the truth of the situation.  

Madam Lim passed away in 1967 in her 90's. The filial piety continued and the children continued the Qing Ming tradition in paying respects their mother. The 6 year old girl who was present when her mother passed away, grew up to have children of her own and this tradition continues ! For a more detailed story, refer to Toh Pow (林门卓氏). (website). Story by Catherine Lim and Raymond Goh with inputs from Angelique. Singapore Tombstones Epigraphic Materials 新加坡墓碑铭集录 (posted on 8 March 2023)

Location of tomb

Block 3 Division 10, plot 930 

Burial entry of Madam Toh Pow

Remembering Toh Pow - 2023

Remembering Madam Toh Pow on 19 March 2023