Mrs Lee Kuan Yew Cremated
Wednesday, 6th October 2010
The ceremonial gun carriage carried the late Mrs Lee Kuan Yew (nee Madam Kwa Geok Choo, age 90) from Sri Temasek (located within the Istana grounds) to Mandai Crematorium. At Mandai Crematorium a private funeral service was held. During the service, Mentor Minister Lee Kuan Yew delivered a touching eulogy.
Lee Kuan Yew met Kwa in 1944 at a party and courted her from 1946. In 1947, Kwa (then age 27) married Lee Kuan Yew (then age 24) secretly in London where they were both studying Law in Cambridge University. They had two sons Lee Hsien Loong and Lee Hsien Yang, and one daughter Lee Wei Ling. Mrs Lee Kuan Yew was bedridden and unable to speak after suffering two major strokes in 2008.
In 2003, she had suffered a stroke while holidaying in London with Mr. Lee Kuan Yew. Mrs Lee who had collapsed while staying at the Four Seasons Hotel in Canary Wharf, east London and had to be driven in an ambulance to Royal London Hospital. After performing the CT scan at the hospital, it shown that she indeed had blood clot in her head.
Doctors at the Royal London advised Mr Lee to keep his wife there for three weeks until she stabilised fully, but he preferred to run the risk of flying her home for 14 hours on Singapore Airlines just three days after her collapse. A passenger jet was specially converted into a "mobile hospital" with two intensive care nurses, two doctors, oxygen and a drip and flown from Singapore.