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She was the supremely capable wife who signed the cheques and
kept the family strong, prompting her husband, Minister Mentor Lee
Kuan Yew, to suggest, only half in jest, that he was a 'kept
man'.
Many men will cringe at that status, believing that being kept
is a contemptible station in life. Not so Mr Lee, who sometimes
made counter-intuitive remarks about his wife that hinted at how
equal their marriage was.
Married in 1947, their union spanned the decades from
Singapore's vulnerable infancy to its arrival as a First World
country. Telling the nation that he was a kept man was Mr Lee's way
of acknowledging how central his wife, Madam Kwa Geok Choo, a
brilliant cheongsam-clad lawyer, was in his career.
Because he had a resolute, able and successful wife at his side
during the riotous 1950s, he had the freedom of mind to take arms
against colonialism and communism, without worrying that their
three young children might suffer if anything were to happen to
him.
It was years later, in 1985, that he would say in Parliament:
'Over the years I've been a kept man. My wife keeps the
family.'
That was a rare moment when the role in his life played by his
intensely shy and private spouse surfaced.
For she had chosen all her life to support him from behind the
front line. It was not her place to offer political advice, both
appeared to agree, or advance her own agenda or take a direct part
in politics.
When senior Straits Times journalists, interviewing him in the
late 1990s for their book Lee Kuan Yew: The Man And His Ideas,
wanted to know what 'influence' Mrs Lee had on him, he
responded:
'Not in political matters. In political matters, she would not
know enough to tell me whether this is right or wrong.'
Tellingly, though, he indicated that she was a discerning judge
of character.
Other times, he valued her frugality and staid quality. 'She's a
very caring person, very staid, very caring; she's not frivolous
and does not like to socialise, which saves a lot of time,' he
said.
Trusted intermediary
Mr and Mrs Lee, together with Mr Lee's brother Kim Yew, set up
the Lee & Lee law firm in a shabby Malacca Street shophouse in
1955.
It was there that Mrs Lee, or Choo as her husband called her,
'first personified the whole hazardous balancing act that was to
decide the fate of Singapore', according to the late British
journalist Dennis Bloodworth, who authored The Tiger And The Trojan
Horse.
There, under the radar, she played the unlikely role of
'cut-out' or trusted intermediary between Mr Lee and two
irreconcilable enemies - the British Governor and the
'Plenipotentiary' of the Malayan Communist Party.
Governor William Goode would make contact with Mr Lee, leader of
the radical People's Action Party (PAP), through his confidential
secretary Pamela Hickley, who would phone Mrs Lee and communicate
in hushed tones.
As for 'The Plen', Mr Fang Chuang Pi, he did not trust
telephones. But Lee & Lee's clients then included petty
gangsters, unlicensed hawkers and a whole host of other humble
people, so it was easy for The Plen's courier to slip upstairs to
her office.
As Mrs Lee drily pointed out to Mr Bloodworth: 'A four-digit
lottery runner would look much the same as a communist agent.'
Mr Bloodworth was able to consult her in the early 1980s for his
rich account of the duel between the non-communist PAP and
communists. Her voice as it emerged in brief quotes in the book
sounded coolly cogent and eloquent, hinting at a precise, lawyerly
wit.
The same voice was also evident in the odd e-mail interviews she
gave the media in her later years.
For example, when asked if she and Mr Lee had disagreements, she
responded: 'Would you believe me if I say we never disagree or
quarrel?
'Fortunately, these are over little matters. Kuan Yew leaves
household decisions to me. Family matters have not been a
problem.'
Another time, in a light-hearted sequence when Radio Television
Hong Kong quizzed the couple in 2002, she teased Mr Lee. The
interviewer, who started by asking them if they held hands,
wondered about changes since their romantic Cambridge years.
Mrs Lee gave a deliberately plain reply: 'The only change is
that we've grown older.'
Cheekily, the interviewer said: 'Black hair to white hair.'
Mrs Lee, who often banters with her husband, looked at him and
quipped: 'Black hair to no hair.'
Nixon's compliment
In 1973, then United States President Richard Nixon paid artful
homage to her at the White House:
'Tonight, when you saw me turning to Mrs Lee, I said, 'Mrs Lee,
tell me, is it true that you were No. 1 in the class at Cambridge
Law School and your husband was No. 2?' And she said, 'Mr
President, do you think he would have married me if that were the
case?'
'But I probed further, and I found that, as a matter of fact,
Mrs Lee... did receive a first at Cambridge Law School.
'Her husband did also, but like a very loyal wife, she said, 'He
had a first with a star after his name, and that is something very
special'.'
Mrs Lee was being modest, for she had outshone her husband
academically - not at Cambridge but earlier, at Raffles
College.
As Mr Lee related in his memoirs, The Singapore Story, he was
the best student in mathematics, scoring over 90 marks.
'But to my horror, I discovered I was not the best in either
English or economics. I was in second place, way behind a certain
Miss Kwa Geok Choo.'
He sat up. 'I knew I would face stiff competition for the
Queen's Scholarship,' he wrote.
They had first met at Raffles Institution. As the only girl in a
boys' school, the principal had asked her to present the prizes in
1939, and he collected three books from her.
Their intellectual rivalry turned into friendship - and then
love.
Her Prince Charming
The war from 1943 to 1946 disrupted their education. Together
with Mr Yong Nyuk Lin, later a minister, whose wife was Miss Kwa's
sister, Mr Lee started a small business making gum, which was then
in short supply. The young Kuan Yew reconnected with Geok Choo in
that context.
Later, he recalled: 'She told me... she was looking for her
Prince Charming. I turned up, not on a white horse but a bicycle
with solid tyres!'
It was often in his happy recollection of their love story -
from his moonlight proposal to their secret wedding in 1947 while
they were law students in Cambridge - that Mr Lee's forceful
personality seemed to soften, even sparkle, most.
But then Mrs Lee regularly revealed a different side of the
leader simply by her presence, or her well-timed words in a light
British accent.
One day, for a Straits Times report to highlight healthy living,
he hopped onto a bicycle on the Istana grounds.
The photographer and journalist found it awkward to instruct the
leader of the land to keep cycling. Mrs Lee stepped to the fore,
urging her husband to continue riding in circles until the photo
shoot was complete.
In the public mind, however, she was very much the silent
partner. 'I walk two steps behind my husband like a good Asian
wife,' she said in 1976 on a visit to Kuala Lumpur. 'I am not used
to interviews. I suppose I am interview-shy.'
In 1971, the Manila Times marvelled at the way the Lees kept out
of the public eye. Mr Lee made sure there was 'no Lee Kuan Yew
family with a capital F' and 'no Lee Kuan Yew cult', the paper said
in a front-page story. And Mrs Lee was 'almost an invisible
entity', the paper observed - in marked contrast to some first
ladies elsewhere, including in the Philippines itself.
In this respect, she personified - and in many ways, set the
model for - the Singapore-style political spouse: in the
background, not a newsmaker, not flashy. She was always very quiet
by Mr Lee's side in public. And by her manner and deportment, she
set the moral tone for all the other political wives. Which was not
to say she wasn't always observant - of situations as well as of
people.
Mr Lee paid a glowing tribute to his wife in the preface to the
first volume of his memoirs, The Singapore Story, which was
dedicated to 'Choo':
'Choo was a tower of strength, giving me constant emotional and
intellectual support,' he wrote. She would stay up with him till
4am while he laboured over his tome. 'A powerful critic and
helper', she went over every word. 'We had endless arguments,' he
wrote.
This was an echo of his early political life, when she used to
polish his speeches because he had no time.
More significantly, she also had a hand in the 1965 Separation
Agreement with Malaysia drafted by then Law Minister Eddie
Barker.
Mr Lee had wanted the critical water agreements with Johor to be
included in the Separation Agreement. He recounted in his memoirs:
'I was too hard-pressed, and told Choo, who was a good conveyancing
lawyer, to find a neat way to achieve this.'
The paragraphs she drafted later became part of the Malaysian
Constitution, guaranteeing Singapore's water supply from Johor.
The couple were inseparable. One evocative photograph that has
appeared in this paper shows Mrs Lee watching and listening to her
husband from a private coign on a rooftop, as he spoke at Fullerton
Square rally during the 1984 General Election.
Even after her first stroke in 2003, which occurred while she
and her husband were in London, she would still accompany him on
trips - whether it was to Chinese New Year dinners in his Tanjong
Pagar constituency or on long visits to the Middle East.
At every turn of their marriage of 63 years and in the nation's
life of over 45 years, Mrs Lee's love for the father of modern
Singapore ran like a leitmotif in his and the nation's life.
In the end, her life, so quiet and yet so entwined with his,
made her a vital partner in the Singapore story.
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ABOUT MRS LEE
Madam Kwa Geok Choo was born in Singapore on Dec 21, 1920. Her
parents were Mr and Mrs Kwa Siew Tee. Her father was the
Oversea-Chinese Banking Corporation's (OCBC Bank) general manager
from 1935 to 1945.
1936: Completes secondary education at
Methodist Girls' School. First in the Senior Cambridge Examination
for the whole of Malaya.
1937-39: Joins Raffles Institution Special
Class, where she meets Mr Lee Kuan Yew.
1940-46: Enrols in Raffles College in 1940 and
returns in 1946 after end of World War II.
1947: Graduates from Raffles College with First
Class Diploma in Arts, winning the Queen's Scholarship.
1947-49: Reads law as a second-year student in
Girton College, Cambridge University.
Places first in Part II of the Law Tripos - the first woman in
Malaya to win this distinction.
1947: Secretly marries Mr Lee in December.
1950: Passes Bar final in May. Both she and Mr
Lee are called to the Bar at the Middle Temple on June 21. Returns
to Singapore. Marries Mr Lee again on Sept 30.
1951: Is admitted to the Bar in Singapore on
Aug 7. Joins and becomes senior partner of a local law firm.
1952: Gives birth to son Lee Hsien Loong.
1955: The Lee & Lee law firm is established
by Mr Lee, his brother Kim Yew and Madam Kwa.
1955: Gives birth to daughter Lee Wei Ling.
1957: Gives birth to second son Lee Hsien
Yang.
1959: Mr Lee Kuan Yew is elected Prime Minister
of Singapore. His brother and Madam Kwa take over the reins of Lee
& Lee. They remain as consultants even after retirement from
active practice.
1965: Helps in drafting parts of the Separation
Agreement when Singapore leaves Malaysia.
2003: Suffers a stroke in October while on a
visit to London. Recovers soon after and continues to accompany her
husband on official trips.
2008: Suffers two strokes in May and in June,
which leave her unable to get out of bed, move or speak.
2010: Dies at age 89, 11 weeks before her 90th
birthday.
