Menghua Luo

Luo Menghua, born in 1896 in Hefei, Anhui Province. Her birthplace is Hefei, while her ancestral origin is not specified. In childhood she had her feet bound, but the bindings were removed in adulthood, resulting in deformities of the feet. Her education consisted of attending a private school. In 1920 she married the mathematician Yang Wuzhi (born April 14, 1896; died May 12, 1973), who hailed from Fengyang, Anhui, and after marriage she used her current name. Yang Wuzhi served as the head or acting head of the Mathematics Department at both Tsinghua University and the Southwestern Associated University. The couple had several children: the eldest son Yang Zhenning (Chen-Ning Yang) born October 1, 1922; other children included second son Yang Zhenping, third son Yang Zhenhan, fourth son Yang Zhenfu, and daughter Yang Zhenyu. Yang Zhenning would become a theoretical physicist and later a Nobel Prize laureate.

In terms of education, Yang Zhenning began acquiring literacy at age four under Professor Luo Menghua, and within about two years completed roughly 3,000 Chinese characters of foundational literacy. From 1949, Luo Menghua settled in Shanghai. In 1960, she twice traveled to Geneva to be reunited with Yang Zhenning; during these visits she described the domestic shortages in the country and explicitly opposed his returning to China to develop there.

In 1973, her husband Yang Wuzhi passed away in Shanghai. Yang Zhenning, who frequently traveled to Hong Kong, brought his mother to live in Hong Kong. In the 1982 and 1983 pre-Spring Festival periods, Luo Menghua was brought to Hong Kong by her son to stay briefly; the two even went to the Sha Tin district’s Ho Fung Photo Studio to take a commemorative photo. In the summer of 1984, Luo Menghua accompanied Yang Zhenning to the United States for a four-month visit, during which they visited Brookhaven National Laboratory and took photographs; this was her only trip to the United States in her life. During the trip, Luo Menghua was diagnosed with multiple myeloma.

In 1985, following the diagnosis, Yang Zhenning arranged for her to settle in Hong Kong, purchasing a home and arranging for relatives to care for her. In January 1987, she accompanied Yang Zhenning to Singapore; due to limited mobility she required a wheelchair. On September 12, 1987, Luo Menghua died at the Prince of Wales Hospital in Sha Tin, New Territories, Hong Kong, at the age of 91. She and her husband Yang Wuzhi, together with their younger son Yang Zhenfu (1937–1985), are buried in a cemetery in Dongshan Town, Wuzhong District, Suzhou.