Born the eldest daughter of Chinese businessmen of Hokkien-Hakka descent from Penang which owned tin mines in Selangor and had been established in Malaya for generations.

Her Hakka mother, Soon Kui Sim, took over the management of her husband's tin mines in Rawang, when he was forced to retire due to illness.

Being largely illiterate, she devised her own complex hieroglyphic bookkeeping system to manage the family's extensive finances.

Upon his death, she had to bring up three children on her own, and was especially concerned with the poor health of her eldest child: her son Wan Tho.

In 1937, she purchased a site at Dhoby Ghaut in Singapore where she constructed the modern Cathay Building and developed cinema, hotel and restaurant businesses.

Before their home was occupied by the Japanese, Loke was evacuated to British Raj India and, during the war years there, started a Chinese restaurant in Bangalore.

[1] On the liberation of Singapore, Loke returned in 1946 whereupon she was presented with a plaque by Lord Louis Mountbatten commemorating his occupancy of the Cathay Building.

Yuen Peng remembers her mother had helped two girls from St. Hilda's School in Katong and putting them through university education in Australia.