Donations totaling $2,000 have collected in a scholarship fund to commemorate Albert Lea High School graduate Jeanette Wong Ming, whose ashes returned to Albert Lea soil Sunday 48 years after she left town.

The fund will help ALHS graduating students majoring art or journalism attend college. Wong was a daughter of the only Chinese in the town, who ran Canton Cafe on South Broadway.

While she worked for Metropolitan Museum in New York City after studying at the University of Michigan, Wong continued her painting and illustration work and had a number of gallery exhibitions.

In high school, she was in charge of illustrations at the Ahlahasa student newsmagazine.

&uot;Whenever we had some art work to be done, we called on Netty. She always helped through even though she had to stay working at Canton Cafe until after midnight,&uot; said Mary Fritz Ostrander, a colleague at the Ahlahasa. &uot;She was more than appreciative. She never complained. She never said no.&uot;

Seventy-one classmates, former employees at Canton Cafe and family members gathered at a memorial service in the Lakewood Cemetery shared their memories about Wong.

Though the family moved out Albert Lea in the mid-1970s, Wong always remembered her hometown and told her wish to rest there to her son Eric and sister Gloria.

Contributions can be made to Jeanette Wong Ming Art Scholarship, Albert Lea High School, 2000 Tiger Ln. Telephone: (507) 379-5354.