Di Chen, pillar of Minnesota's Chinese community, dies at 89

Di Chen was born a leader, marked from the start with a nickname of his father's choosing: Bossy Child.

"From the day he was born he pretty much had the idea that he's the oldest child, so he assumed the responsibility of the oldest child," said his sister, Shirley Chen.

After surviving World War II and the Chinese Civil War — years that made up his childhood — Chen was the first in his family to leave China for the United States. He settled in Minnesota and became a leader in the field of electrical engineering, working to create a precursor to the CD and DVD.

Remembered for his contributions to science and technology, as well as for his leadership in Minnesota's Chinese community, Chen died Oct. 14 at his home in Mound. He was 89.

Chen was born in China's Zhejiang province in 1929, the oldest of three sons. When the Japanese invaded China in the late 1930s, his family began to move, starting in Shanghai and then heading to Hong Kong.

As bombs fell on Hong Kong in the days before the Japanese took the city, Chen hid in a cave with his brothers and his aunt, waiting for the firestorm to end. The boys' mother had died of tuberculosis, and their father, a newspaper publisher, was off getting the paper out.

When the air raid ended, the 12-year-old Chen stepped out of the cave just as an artillery shell landed a few feet away.

The family soon split up. Chen lived with his father in Chongqing, while his brothers were sent to stay with relatives. When the war ended, they reunited in Shanghai.

When the Communist government took power, the family moved again, this time to Taiwan. Chen was always on the lookout for food and other necessities, Shirley Chen said. He once took an egg from a laboratory at his school, and brought it home to hatch so they could have a regular source of eggs.

Chen graduated from National Taiwan University in 1952 with an electrical engineering degree, then headed to the United States for graduate school. He met his wife, Lynn, at the University of Minnesota.

After graduating from the U with a master's degree, Chen earned a Ph.D. at Stanford University and then returned to Minnesota to work at the U and then at Honeywell. His research focused on optical memory, or using laser technology to write and read data on optical discs.

At the same time, Chen was working to sustain Chinese culture in his new homeland. In 1965, he joined with other Chinese immigrants to form the Chinese American Association of Minnesota (CAAM).

"He's the pillar of the family, and a pillar of the Chinese community," she said.

In 1998, after nearly two decades living and working in Colorado, Chen and his wife settled in a house he had designed on Lake Minnetonka. Chen spent some of his free time attending photography workshops, including one focused on photographing the night sky in the southwestern United States. He was, proudly, the only one in his group to capture a time-lapse image of a shooting star.

Chen is survived by his wife, Lynn, brothers Frank and Tom, sister Shirley, sons Andy and Dan, and four grandsons. Services have been held.