Betty Leong, retired math teacher and community volunteer, dies at 74

No one looking at the small older woman who volunteered at her community center or her civic association would think she was a second-degree black belt in tae kwon do. Or that she had been part of the New York Wall Street Dragons, a dragon-boat racing team. But Betty Leong, of New Hyde Park, took on tasks and challenges with the mental precision of the retired high school mathematics teacher that she was.

"I liked that she was fun and athletic," recalled her husband, John Leong, of when they had met as fellow students at Queens College decades ago. She kept those traits through the years, he said. "We went swimming, bike riding — we'd take 50-, 75-mile rides sometimes. And we'd have a ride from Queens out to Montauk," a distance of 115 miles with their route, he said. "You can do that in one day." And they did.

"This woman was unbelievable," said Mona Ng, a longtime friend who is vice president of the Chinese Center on Long Island, in West Hempstead, where Leong was a past president. "She has done so much, and her friendships extended from dragon boating to pickleball to the senior communities to the politicians to different Chinese organizations. ... It’s a huge loss to all of us. She is totally one-of-a-kind."

Indeed, in March at the CCLI’s 65th annual gala, Town of North Hempstead Councilwoman Christine Liu presented Leong with a proclamation on behalf of the town honoring her decades of service. Leong had previously been named to the town's Newburger Women’s Roll of Honor, for extensive volunteer work in North Hempstead, in 2012.

Leong died of cancer on Sept. 1 at Long Island Jewish Medical Center in New Hyde Park. She was 74.

Born and raised in Manhattan’s Chinatown neighborhood, she was one of two children of Chinese immigrants Quong Meng Woo, who served with the U.S. Army during World War II, and Wai Hing Woo. After graduating from the now-defunct Washington Irving High School in Manhattan, she earned both a bachelor’s and a master’s degree in math at Queens College.

Initially working as manager of the Queens College recreation room, "She realized there wasn't any place to go with that job, and that's when she decided to go become a teacher," her husband said. She was posted to Queens' Forest Hills High School, remaining there 30 years before retiring in the 2010s.

She and John Leong, who married in 1974, lived in Flushing, Queens, before moving to New Hyde Park in 2002. They adopted a daughter, April, from China.

After retirement, Betty Leong threw herself into community activism with such groups as the CCLI, the Lakeville Estates Civic Association, the American Legion and the Chinese American Association of North Hempstead, with that organization’s Joy Fu Chinese Senior Club.

One significant achievement, friends and family said, was getting pickleball courts installed at Clinton G. Martin Park and later at Michael J. Tully Jr. Park, both in New Hyde Park. "Yeah," her husband quipped, "she got the ball rolling."

Ng, of North Hempstead, added: "During the pandemic, she had some connections where she was able to get sanitizers, face masks, a lot of stuff, to have those distributed to all the different Chinese organizations so they could distribute them to seniors and to other people."

The couple's most memorable travel, John Leong said, was to the village in China where her parents had been born. Her avocations included tennis, mah-jongg and tai chi.

In addition to her husband and their daughter, April Leong of Bethpage, she is survived by her brother, Gene Woo, of Manhasset.

Following visitation Saturday from noon to 3 p.m. at the New Hyde Park Funeral Home, there will be a celebration of life service there from 3 to 4:30 p.m. Cremation will be private.

Donations may be made to the American Cancer Society or the New York City nonprofit adoption agency Spence-Chapin.