Based in Chicago, Chan was a leading supporter of the Kuomintang in the United States, and helped raise money for both Sun Yat-sen and General Chiang Kai-shek.

Tom Young Chan was born in the village of Yakou in Zhongshan, Guangdong Province, China.

A journalist for the Chicago Daily News described him as a "handsome, smiling Chinese with leaping eyebrows" who spoke "halting English.

Thousands turned out for a man who had helped to raise more than $4 million during the last war bond drive for his adopted country.

[6] As prominent as he was, however, he was not allowed to be buried next to his late wife, Mary Goo, in Rosehill Cemetery, Chicago, Illinois, for what some believe to be racist reasons.