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By fluke, Clement was interviewing a woman about her husband one day, when the conversation steered off to her grandfather.

From there, she was able to track down and recently unveil a life-size image of Chow himself, as part of the city-backed “Chinatown History Windows” project.

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Chow is wearing a pale-coloured, three-piece suit and Panama hat with a dark ribbon. His broad face wears a warm smile. The year is 1927.

“He’s got kind of an air about him. In another (photo), he has a cigar and is sort of looking at the camera,” said Clement, who has been bringing to life “big pivotal moments and trends in Chinatown history,” but has a soft spot for this rather unsung one.

“All these hundreds and hundreds of families, who have his seal in their photo albums. … And for the first time, we get to see him. Only a few people are left who ever met (Chow), and yet his work resides in the heritage vaults of so many families.”

Leonard Chow, a 77-year-old retired Vancouver dentist and Yucho’s grandson, agrees that his grandfather’s contribution hasn’t been much noted, although he does recall a photo of him that may have been hung inside the halls of the Chinese Cultural Centre.

There is “a little bit” of talk among older family members, but “if the topic is never brought up” there isn’t much harkening back to the days of when he was a young boy, watching his grandfather take countless photos. Sometimes, as the oldest grandson, he would stay overnight at the family’s studio, first on Pender Street and later on Main.