George Ow Sr. almost didn't make it back to America. After his parents put him on the USS President Hoover in Hong Kong in 1937, Chinese pilots near Shanghai mistook the ocean liner for a Japanese troop ship and bombed it.

Only one person was killed, and the ship received only minor damage, but it had "to limp into San Francisco," Ow later told Santa Cruz historian Geoffrey Dunn.

Once in America, which Chinese immigrants then called the Golden Mountain, Ow reached the top. He rose from being a virtual orphan to become one of the most successful entrepreneurs and biggest philanthropists in Santa Cruz County.

Ow died at his Scotts Valley home July 26 at age 85. He left behind a multigenerational business family that has pumped money into the arts, health projects and hundreds of scholarships for the sons and daughters of farmworkers and other disadvantaged groups.

"He always taught us to give back," said Karen Ow of Santa Cruz, his oldest grandchild, now a property manager in the family business.

Relatives and friends say Ow was a loyal, hard-working man with a playful sense of humor who never forgot his humble roots or his good fortune.

Back and forth

He was born in a tiny rice-farming village near Toisan, China, in 1919 at a time of enormous social upheaval and economic misery. His first memory was trying to eat a pebble because there was nothing else to put in his stomach, said his oldest son, George Ow Jr.

But his luck turned when a Chinese family from Santa Cruz adopted him at age 5 on a visit to their homeland. The Lam Pon family was one of the few Chinese families that lived outside of Santa Cruz's old Chinatown.

Largely because Chinese immigrants were not able to own property and were treated as second-class citizens under the Chinese Exclusion Act, the entrepreneurial family returned to China in 1930. Lam Pon built a new home in Canton and enrolled George in a prestigious private school.

But when he was 17, as Japanese troops were bearing down on southern China, his parents put him on the President Hoover with 10 dollars in his pocket. He spent most of it on a ukulele when the ship docked in Honolulu. He arrived in San Francisco with $2.

George Ow went to live with his uncle, Lam Sing, who owned the Canton Market in Santa Cruz. He learned to cut meat and other aspects of the grocer's trade.

At Santa Cruz High School, racial epithets were tossed his way. But he brushed them off and befriended many fellow students, including the children of African-American tannery workers and Italian-American fishermen who also faced discrimination. One of his schoolmates was Gilda Stagnaro, now owner of the landmark Gilda's restaurant on the Santa Cruz Wharf. She remained a lifelong friend.

"He was always a nice kid, a kind and generous person who we were lucky to have in our school," Stagnaro said. "There are a lot of wonderful immigration stories in Santa Cruz, and we should be proud of all of them."

Ow joined the military in 1944. He often fondly recalled being looked on as a liberating hero by other ethnic Chinese as he and fellow American troops freed village after village in the Philippines, George Ow Jr. said.

By the time he returned from the war, anti-Chinese laws had been repealed. He and his wife, Emily Lee, moved to Monterey to buy the New Monterey Market and, later, Avenue Market. But when a Chinese-American competitor built a huge new supermarket, he decided to return to Santa Cruz County.

He had heard that the best place to buy property was at the first major intersection after a freeway off-ramp. So in the early '60s, he bought some land amid the cows, goats and sheep and built King's Market on 41st Avenue at Capitola Road. Most people thought he was crazy, but the area eventually became the county's main commercial district, now home to Capitola Mall.

He later bought another cow pasture in the middle of nowhere in Scotts Valley. It became the King's Village Shopping Center, now the county's second largest shopping center.

As Ow bought more property and became wealthy, he began giving much of his money away. He and George Jr. established scholarships at Cabrillo College -- the American Dream Scholarships. In the mid-'70s, George Sr. became National Exchange Club president, the first time the position was held by a non-white person. His children and grandchildren followed him into business and philanthropy.

Chris Ow remembers his grandfather's lectures about the importance of education and personal responsibility. He also recalls how Grandpa was a prankster.

"He was into billiards and didn't like to lose," Chris Ow said. "If that happened, he switched the regular eight-ball with one that was lopsided."

Facing prejudice

Family friend Tony Hill, an African-American community activist in Santa Cruz, said he always admired how George Ow Sr. and his children handled the ugliness of racial prejudice.

"They got past the anger. Instead of allowing it to be something that ate them up, they made it work in their favor," Hill said. "George Ow passed on a powerful legacy."