A beautiful example of Colonial Revival architecture, built in 1925 by Oak Lawn Methodist Church for $25,000, the residence at 4317 Rawlins Street served as a parsonage for the church’s pastor and his family. Over the years, it became a cherished site for small weddings and elegant afternoon receptions tied to church life.
The first pastor to reside there was Dr. Emory Hawk, followed by H.M. Whaling, G.W. Davis, John Donaho, Charles Fike, and Fred Edgar. After serving the church for 37 years, the house was sold to private owners in 1962.
The Jung Family Legacy
The next chapter of the home’s history began with Ed Joe Jung and his wife, Floy, who raised their children there over the next two decades. Ed Joe was born Soo Hoo Goon Chung in Haiping, Canton, China, in 1902. At age 14, he immigrated to the United States and adopted a new name and a new life in Dallas.
A pioneering entrepreneur, Ed Joe co-founded a Chinese restaurant called The Mandarin under the Zang Boulevard viaduct. In 1940, he married Floy Louise Groom, with whom he had sons Eddie Jr., Richard, and daughters Lynn Sue (Suzi) and Jodi.
By the late 1950s, he had opened a specialty grocery store, Lincoln Market, at Ross and Hall, catering to Dallas’s small but growing Asian community. His eldest son, Buck Jung, who had joined him in the U.S. in 1949, helped run the store.
At the time, Dallas had only around 200 residents of Chinese descent and just four or five Chinese restaurants. But as the city began to see a rise in immigrants from Japan, Indonesia, and across East Asia, the demand for authentic ingredients grew.
In the mid-1960s, Ed Joe passed Lincoln Market on to Buck and opened a new venture: Jung’s Oriental Food and Gifts at 2519 Fitzhugh Avenue. The store expanded beyond groceries to include Asian decorative and garden items. Ed Joe also became a cultural ambassador of sorts, frequently contributing recipes to the Dallas Morning News to introduce Asian cuisine to a wider audience.
He was later joined by his nephew, Tim Chow, who immigrated to the U.S. at age 36 to manage the store.
Expanding the Family Legacy
In the 1970s, Buck opened Golden Gate Foods, a wholesale operation supplying wonton skins and noodles to restaurants across the area—including clients like TGI Fridays. He raised his own family while continuing the family tradition of entrepreneurship.
Despite living in the U.S. for more than five decades, Ed Joe Jung officially became a U.S. citizen in 1970. He passed away in 1982, and Floy followed in 2011. Floy left behind a remarkable legacy of 18 grandchildren, 18 great-grandchildren, and 5 great-great-grandchildren.