Mondale to Help Recover Body of Van Nuys Woman

The parents of a Van Nuys woman killed in the Kobe earthquake, fearful that their daughter’s remains would be cremated rather than returned home, said Wednesday that they received assurances from U.S. Ambassador to Japan Walter F. Mondale that he will help recover the body.

Voni Wong, 24, died when the house she lived in collapsed. Since receiving word of her death Tuesday, her family, devoutly Baptist, has been trying to locate her body.

“We didn’t want her to be just a casualty,” said her father, Henry Wong. “We feel she deserves a Christian burial.”

He told of being haunted by visions of his daughter’s body lying in a gymnasium with other unclaimed victims.

Voni Wong moved to Japan in January, 1994, eagerly embarking on an overseas adventure after graduating from UCLA with honors. She found a job teaching English near Kobe, but finding a place to live proved more difficult, and she moved numerous times.

In September, she wrote to a friend that she had found the perfect living situation in an old house by the Kobe seaside owned by a warm 80-year-old woman she referred to as oba-san , or Grandmother.

“I finally feel at peace,” she wrote, saying that this would be her last move unless “I go insane . . . this house collapses or . . . I change my mind. All are possible.”

Her father, surrounded by family and friends Wednesday, said: “We had a sweet angel. I thank God for her. We had her all these years. I had been looking forward to many pleasures--walking her down the aisle--but I guess that was not meant to be.”

Voni Wong grew up in Van Nuys, graduating from Grant High School. She had always dreamed of going to Asia, her father said.

She had told her friends that her trip abroad was to be a much-needed break after working her way through school.