Thomas Yan-Chung Li

1929 - 2016
Dr. Li, Thomas (Yan-Chung) 86 years old of Ft. Lauderdale, FL and Ossining, NY, a former resident of Scarsdale, NY for over 25 years, passed away on May 25th, 2016 in Boca Raton, Florida after a lengthy battle with heart failure. He was born during the depression, grew up in rural China and lived through the devastation of the Sino-Japanese war. He left China at the inception of the People's Republic. With the help of the Maryknoll and Italian missionaries, he became a Board certified general surgeon.

As a peripatetic student in Italy, Canada and the United States, he eventually settled down in the United States. Having lost his biological father during early childhood, he gratefully remembered and was deeply inspired by the inimitable examples of the Hon. Professor Emilio Trabucchi of Milan University and Dr. Marcello Candia of Macapa, Brazil, considering them his dear surrogate parents. He dedicated his life in the Bronx caring for many patients with passion and concern. His charitable acts were well appreciated by many. He would have loved to return to his home in mainland China had the situation at the time permitted it. The last 2 years of his life were spent writing a (recently published by Xlibris) autobiographical memoir, "A Frog Out of a Deep Well."

He was preceded in death by his parents, a brother, and a sister. He is survived by his wife of 53 years, Cecilia Chen, PhD; a sister in Jiaoling, China; a son, Emile Li, MD, of Fort Dodge, Iowa; a daughter, Angeline Li, MD,of Chappaqua, NY; 10 grandchildren; 2 great grandchildren and many nieces and nephews. He will be dearly missed!

Visitation at Flynn Memorial Home Yonkers, NY May 31, 2-4 pm and 7-9 pm. Services at St. Augustine Church Ossining NY 10 AM June 1. Interment in the Gate of Heaven cemetery Hawthorne, N.Y.