Helena Indriati K Lomanto

Helena Kwee Kiok Nio was born in Pekalongan, Central Java on October 31, 1931 to her parents Kwee Kiem Thay and Liem Kiem Hwa. Helena was raised alongside one older brother, who passed away in 2007 in Bandung, one older sister, who passed away in 2021 in San Jose, CA, and one younger sister, who passed away in 2024 in Jakarta.

 Helena (lovingly called Lena) spent kindergarten and elementary school in Pekalongan at a school called the Hollands Chinese School until 5th grade, when WWII broke out. She remembered the air sirens and mandatory black-outs in 1941-1945. The family temporarily moved to a village in Central Java called Bawang to avoid bombings in the city. Then one night, the Kwee family set out at midnight to walk through rice fields under the moonlight to move to another village called Surdjo to avoid violence and lootings. During the Japanese occupation in Indonesia, Dutch schools were closed. She attended the 5th grade at a Chinese school with Japanese as a second language in Pekalongan for about one year in 1945. The language faded away from her memory now, never practiced.

 In 1946 her parents planned to bring their 4 children to Jakarta, and from Jakarta to Surabaya (Dutch territory) on a Dutch ship. The border line between Pekalongan (Indonesian territory) and Jakarta (Dutch territory) was Cikampek, West Java. The family waited for three nights in Cikampek, not permitted to Jakarta. They went back to Pekalongan by train. In November 1947 her parents brought their four children to Semarang (Dutch Territory) by military truck, sitting in the open trunk. In Semarang, they waited for 10 days to board a boat to Surabaya. Her family remained in Indonesia until after the war. 

 She first met her brother’s friend, Lo Sien Gwan, in 1944. He approached her by writing letters from Bandung to Surabaya in 1947. She married Lo Sien Gwan (Gunawan) on December 8, 1956 in Bandung, in a ceremony officiated by the late Reverend Gouw Gwan Yang, and they lived in Surabaya before moving to Pekalongan. Together, they raised a god-daughter, Herlina Lomanto, and a son, Harun Lomanto. In 1969, they moved to Jakarta.

 She immigrated from Indonesia to America in 1981. With her husband, they owned a restaurant called Borobudur Restaurant in San Francisco which was eventually relocated to El Cerrito. She also purchased a restaurant called Plantation Golden Fried Chicken in Daly City. Her restaurants were some of the first recorded Indonesian restaurants to exist in Northern California.

 After she retired, she spent her final years living with her husband, her son Harun, his wife Tina, and her granddaughters Monica and Giovanna. The six of them lived together in Elk Grove, where she continued to cook for her family and drive to her church in San Leandro. Her husband passed away in 2020 and Helena continued to live in Elk Grove until she passed away peacefully in her sleep.