Chak Wing Tsao, known as the kindly and gentle proprietor of one of the city's last Chinese hand laundries, died Thursday at the Long Green Nursing Home after a short illness. He was 97.
Known as the T. C. Wing Laundry and located in the 4500 block of Schenley Road in Roland Park, the business was opened in a store in the 500 block of W. Cold Spring Lane by Mr. Tsao in 1932.
"Before World War II, he moved to the present address after taking apart everything and carrying it piece by piece by hand," said Shirley Tsao, the wife of Mr. Tsao's grandson Ricky. Shirley and Ricky Tsao have run the laundry since the elder Mr. Tsao retired in 1978.
"He was known as 'Mr. Wing' and lived above the laundry all of his life. He worked seven days a week, and in the beginning only charged a nickel a shirt," she said.
Howard R. Simpson, a Roland Park resident and customer for 32 years, described Mr. Tsao as "laconic, very businesslike with an occasional big smile."
Shirts, tablecloths, napkins and blouses still are cleaned and ironed by hand, wrapped in paper and tied with string -- and a sign that has rested in the window for at least a decade attests to the shop's popularity: "Sorry. We are no longer taking new customers."
"He was everything I associated with a Chinese laundryman," Mr. Simpson said. "At Christmas time he would give his customers lichee nuts, and it seemed to me that he always had a bowl of some type of Oriental cookies on the counter."
"He used to use heavy irons that had to be heated on the stove," Mrs. Tsao said. "He did things the old-fashioned way."
Reared in Canton, China, Mr. Tsao, in 1930, came to New York's Chinatown, where he learned how to hand-launder garments. He moved to Baltimore to open his own business two years later.
He and the former Hong How Chang married in 1915. She remained behind in China when he emigrated to the United States. The couple was not reunited until 1950 when he was able to bring her to Baltimore. She died in 1989.
"His great dream was to be able to hand down the business and that his name would not be forgotten," Mrs. Tsao said.
Services were to be held at 11 a.m. today at the Ruck Towson Funeral Home, 1050 York Road.
He is survived by his son, Chung Mon Tsao of Roland Park; three additional grandchildren; and eight great-grandchildren.