Bee Lim

Bee Tuan Lim, 84, passed away peacefully on June 23, 2017, surrounded by her loving family, following a sudden hemorrhagic stroke two days prior. She was born on June 8, 1933, as Bee Tuan Uy, the second of six children to Ng Yao Siong and Ong Hui King, in Dumaguete City in the Philippines. During the Second World War her education was interrupted for about four years. Upon returning to school at the end of the war, she was rapidly advanced such that she did not lose any time. She attended college at Silliman University and graduated with a BS in Chemistry in 1955-and still to this day is the only student in that field of study to have received summa cum laude honors. In the fall of 1955, she arrived in the United States and met Edward C. Lim at Oklahoma State University in Stillwater, Oklahoma, where they were both graduate students in the chemistry department. They married on June 23, 1958-exactly 59 years before her passing. After marriage, she moved with her husband to Chicago, Illinois where he began his career as an instructor at Loyola University, and she continued her graduate studies at Northwestern University. In 1962, she received her Ph.D. in Chemistry just months after their first daughter, Diane, was born. Their second daughter, Janice, was born in 1964. The family resided in the Chicago area until 1969, when they moved to Farmington Hills, Michigan. She worked for about 15 years as a research scientist at Wayne State University. Her talents in chemistry translated well to the kitchen, where she enjoyed cooking for her family especially at holiday time. In 1989, she and her husband moved to Hudson, Ohio. Her leisure interests in her later years included global travel, yoga, and exploring Virginia wine country with her daughter (although she was an extremely modest drinker). She was an avid newspaper and Time magazine reader. Her TV was most often tuned to CNN, but she also very much enjoyed watching Dancing with the Stars. Although she constantly wished she were more tech savvy, she was intensely engaged on Facebook as a 'spectator' and was delighted to be able to keep up with her family's activities that way. She is survived and will be greatly missed by her loving husband, Edward, her daughters, Diane Lim (Bill Gale) and Janice Verkerke (Jerry), her six grandchildren (Allie, Emily, Grace, and Johnny Rogers, and Chloe and Joey Verkerke), her five siblings (Keng Chin, Belen, Keng Lee, Joaquin, and Gloria), and many nieces and nephews. A memorial service will be held in late July in Fairfax, Virginia where her husband is relocating to be near their eldest daughter.