Hong-Chan Li

Hong-Chan Li of West Hartford passed away peacefully on August 14, 2025, at age of 91. He was born Jan. 9, 1934 in China to the late Kin-Ko Li and Ying-Kin (Huang) Li. He grew up on a self-supporting family farm in a rather primitive village in Shanghang, Fujian province. While he attended elementary and junior high schools there, he also handled countless daily chores to help his parents around the farm. In 1949, at the age of 15, due to the civil war, he followed his family to Taiwan, where he attended the Yilan Senior High School and the National Taiwan University with a Bachelor degree. After graduation from the NTU, he joined the ROTC program for 18 months. In the summer of 1958, he was deployed to Kinman, an outlying island few miles away from the Communist-held city of Xiamen as a Second Lieutenant. A month later, the 45-day artillery battle broke out. It was considered the fiercest artillery battle in the world military history. In 2018, 60 years after, he wrote a memoir of the Aug. 23 Kinman artillery battle and the article was published in the Biographical Literature in Taiwan. In 1959, he came to the United States, studying at the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana Campus and received a Master's degree in accounting. He went on to earn his second Master's degree in library science from the Western Michigan University in 1965. He began his career in librarianship with St. Joseph's College (now University of St. Joseph) as a reference librarian in West Hartford. Later he took a position with the University of Connecticut school of Social Work Library at the West Hartford campus. Prior to his retirement, he served as Acting Director of the Greater Hartford Campus Library. He had published 6 books. His Social Work Education: a Bibliography and its supplement were published by Scarecrow Press in 1978 and 1989 respectively. They were adopted as required texts for some graduate courses in the field. His Chinese translation of How to Study, authored by Dr. Thomas F. Stanton, cracked into the Top 10 Best Sellers List for months in Taiwan and had been reprinted over 30 times since publication in 1985. His anthology entitled Ying Hou Ji was published in 2016 and can be found in libraries like Yale, Princeton, Columbia, Cornell, UC Berkeley. After retiring, his focus turned to study in Marco Polo. The end product of this endeavor was his edited Chinese translation of The Travels of Marco Polo published through Amazon Kindle e Book in 2021. He was a life member of the Chinese American Librarians Association. In 1978 he led a group of Chinese librarians to form a Northeast Chapter, covering the area of 6 New England states plus New York and New Jersey. He was elected Chapter President for the first 2 terms. He was a member of the Chinese Baptist Church of Greater Hartford, where he built up his faith and drew strength from it. For many years he served as Chief Editor of the CBCGH Newsletter. In 2017 he wrote an article for the Special Issue in Celebration of CBCGH 40th Anniversary, stating how he discovered that the 1919 Mandarin Union Version Bible obtained by the CBCGH is the only existing copy of its edition in the world. The copy was donated to the church by Sister Sally Hurlbert, granddaughter of Rev. Chauncey Goodrich, who was a missionary and the Chairman of the Bible translation committee formed in Shanghai in 1892. This particular edition is still the most popular and widely used one in the Chinese world today. In recognition of this important discovery, his article was reprinted in the Christian Life Quarterly in its entirety. Hong-Chan enjoyed reading, classical music, watching sports, good meals, and travel. He and his beloved wife, Yun-Chun, had traveled extensively throughout the world, mostly by air and by cruise. Once they spent a month in touring the United States from coast to coast by car. Even in their 80's they still ventured out like a young couple visiting Myrtle Beach, Charleston, SC, and Savannah, Atlanta, GA by Greyhound bus. Yet he enjoyed most of all being with his family members and friends. He is survived by his loving wife, Yun-Chun, three children: George (Jane), Linda, and Samuel: and two grandchildren: Tanner and Siena. H also leaves his sister Mei-Sui, two brothers: Tung-Chang (Fongyin) and Ren-Chan; many nephews and nieces. Funeral services will be held at 10:00 am. Saturday, August 23, 2025 at the Chinese Baptist Church of Greater Hartford, 160 Wintonbury Ave., Bloomfield, CT. Entombment will be held following the funeral services in the Cedar Hill Cemetery Community Mausoleum, 453 Fairfield Ave., Hartford. Friends and relatives may call on August 22 from 4 pm - 7 pm at Dillon-Baxter Funeral Home 1276 Berlin Tpke, Wethersfield, CT 06109. Memorial donations may be made his name to the Building Fund of the Chinese Baptist Church of Greater Hartford. To share a memory of Hong-Chan, please visit www.dillonbaxter.com