Leah Hing was born in Portland, Oregon, in 1907. She played saxophone in a band whose members were all Chinese American women, which toured with Honorable Wu on the Radio-Keith-Orpheum Circuit in 1929. In the 1930s, she worked in her family’s restaurant to pay for lessons at the Tex Rankin School of Flying in Portland. In 1934, she earned her pilot's license, becoming the second Chinese American woman to do so, and during World War II, she was an instrument checker at the Portland Air Base. She later worked at the Aero Club in Portland, retiring in 1970. Hing also sold insurance, ran a watch repair business, and was a photographer; in her free time, she assisted Chinese immigrants with the process to become U.S. citizens. Hing died in 2001.

Sources: Vital records on Ancestry.com; information provided by Hing in her interview; “Chinese Girl Takes to Air; First in U.S.,” by Dick Rummel, Oregon Daily Journal, March 6, 1932, Page 7; “Chinese Girl Flying Pupil Quick to Acquire Knack,” Sunday Oregonian, March 6, 1932, Section Six, Page 4; “If the Hereafter has Rules, Leah Hing’s Breaking Them,” by Margie Boulé, Oregonian, July 29, 2001, Page A1; "Leah Hing: A Life of Service," by Lt. Col. Elizabeth A. Sydow, Civil Air Patrol News, May 26, 2020 (accessed January 24, 2025), https://www.cap.news/leah-hing-a-life-of-service/

Ruth Chinn, nee Hing, was born in Portland, Oregon, in 1909. She studied physical education at the University of Oregon and at the University of Washington. In 1935, she and Yuin Kee Chinn were married. She later worked as an expeditor for the Boeing Company in Seattle, Washington. Ruth Chinn died in 2000.

Sources: Vital records on Ancestry.com; information provided by Chinn in her interview; “Chinese Girl in Race,” the Oregonian, January 4, 1934, Page 7; Chinn’s obituary in the Oregonian, August 29, 2000, Page B10.