July 26, 1954 – May 16, 2025

Candi’s story begins in war torn Korea in 1954. Born to a Korean mother and fathered by a U.S. Serviceman, she was left on the steps of an orphanage run by the Seventh Day Adventist Church in Seoul. People might think that was a terrible thing for her mother to do, but in reality, realizing what a difficult life she would have faced as a mixed race woman in a homogeneous society, she knew it was the only thing she could do to offer her a future, and literally save her life. Two years later, she was adopted by Don and Elva Lee. Don’s father and mother ran that orphanage in Seoul, and thus you know that Candi would have literally been the “pick of the litter”. She arrived in New York and began her new life as an American. She had a relatively normal childhood, but the relationship with her mother was fraught with challenges. For her high school years she attended Newberry Park Adventist Academy, a boarding school which thankfully got her out of the house for most of the year, which turned out to be such a blessing. She met and married her first husband, Charles, and they moved to Tahoe in 1976. She gave birth to Chip on February 26, 1977. In 1979 Charles was killed in a car accident on Pioneer Trail, and Candi was left a widowed mother with a two year old son.

In the fall of 1981 she met Evan, and things just clicked. They married in May of 1983. Evan had been working in the fine dining restaurant business here in Tahoe and in 1988 God presented them with the opportunity to purchase the same location where Evan had worked for a decade, and Evan’s American Gourmet Cafe was born, where Candice and Evan built Tahoe’s top rated, and only DiRoNA Award winning, fine dining restaurant. She was predeceased by her parents, Don and Elva, sister Lynda and beloved son, Chip, and survived by her husband Evan and half-sister, Sher, as well as countless loving nieces, nephews, and brothers and sisters-in-law, Geoffrey and Linda, Jeff and Karen, Dana and Karen, Brian and Catherine and Glenn and Bonnie.

A Celebration of Life will be held on Monday, June 9th at 6:00 PM at Mountain House Church, located at 3580 Blackwood Drive, South Lake Tahoe, CA 96150. All are welcome.