Annabel Liu

Annabel Liu, a resident of Plush Mills Senior Living in Wallingford since 2007, died on March 10, 2019. She was 84. 

Annabel was born in Shanghai, China, in 1935, two years before the start of the Sino-Japanese War. At the end of the Chinese Communist Revolution her family fled to Taiwan. She later came to the U.S. as a journalism graduate student, and married Samuel H. Liu in 1960.

For several years, she taught journalism at Iowa State University and published freelance feature articles in The Des Moines Register. Later, she published eight volumes of essays, short stories and a novella in Chinese. 

After the death of her husband she moved from San Diego to Wallingford. In her last nine years, she wrote three volumes of memoirs in English: My Life as Chang Tsen: Two Wars, One Childhood, Under the Towering Tree: A Daughter’s Memoir, and When Chopsticks Meet Apple Pie: Cross-Cultural Musings on Life, Family and Food. In addition, she published several essays on the WHYY blog, including her last, Father Knows Best, finished on March 9, hours before her death. Her life was also one of four featured in Last Boat Out of Shanghai: The Epic Story of the Chinese Who Fled Mao’s Revolution by Helen Zia.

Annabel is survived by her brother and sister-in-law, Charles and Sandy Liu of Fredericksburg, Va.; her daughter and son-in law, Andrea Liu and Douglas Durian of Swarthmore, her son and daughter-in-law, Clif and Tracy Liu of San Jose, Calif.; and by three grandchildren, Sylvia and Julia Durian and Nathaniel Liu.

A memorial service will be held on Saturday, March 23, 2019.

Donations

Donations in Annabel’s memory may be made to WHYY.