Family News

Bri and David and Maddox came to visit last weekend.  The flew in from SeaTac late Friday and Mack picked them up and made them comfortable at his house.  In the morning he drove them to La Costa Glen where we had lunch and a tour of the campus.  Then we piled into the Porsche and drove to the Scripps Aquarium.  After that we drove to the nearby Bataquitos Lagoon, a reclaimed junk pond that is now cleaned by the ocean tides and has become a nature preserve.  We walked a little way on the path, but unfortunately the museum had closed.  

We ate dinner at Casa de Bandini, and Maddox behaved beautifully.  Its a busy place and he loves to watch people.  Then Mack drove them home in his car.   

Since we can't all fit in his car, I was wondering how we would get to our breakfast rendezvous at The Broken Yolk, a bit far to walk with a baby.  Mack had it all figured out however, and we went in two cars!   He makes everything so smooth.

We did not get to do the famous brunch this time, but there is always next visit.  Before it was time to leave for the plane we returned the Porsche to its garage, and took Maddox to see the waterfall and koi pond and its two giant turtles.  He had a glorious run along the path, stopping to slap the bushes along the way.  He does not walk, he runs!  Weighs 30 lbs.  Has a reddish cast to his hair. So much fun to have a great grandson.
 

We had a lovely weekend, but Monday is back to school for Bri and David, and work for Mack.  And I will have to get back to Sandon Studio blogs, which Wendy is helping me research.   

Commendatory Address for G.H.Parry

By the Dean of Liverpool

In the silence which we are about to observe, I bid you company with the spirit of him whose body only has died and is this day brought into our Cathedral where we indeed honour ourselves in honoring him.

Children of the tenements libraries did not know as we older ones knew where to find the spirit that delighted itself in kindliness, scorning his own personal rights and dignities where they endangered the setting of the young upon adventures of knowledge and beauty.

To be a scholar, he would say to them as he shewed them where to find the beginning of the royal road, is to be a man who has never grown up - who is always growing - who bears the marks of unwearying patience and takes his delight in hopefulness and who with infectious courage adventures in all kingdoms of knowledge and beauty.

George Parry acted out his dreams, whilst many of us discussed with concern the problem of unemployment he took from it the sting of stigma by regarding the unemployed as men and women of leisure, shewing to them where lay the key of the treasures of the deep.

The corporate honor of the City was so safe in his hands and was consistently enhanced by his service, for he could not if he tried stoop so low as to be meticulous for his personal privileges to the corporate loss.

He desired no honor apart from his City; his loyalty was such that you could not separate him from those set over him or under him, or from the students who were his joy.

Arnold Bennett was right about G.H. Parry "if his workshop was set amid the most beautiful architectural surroundings, his service matched them well."

'Tis true, he knew to our inestimable advantage all the treasures of literature and art that were stored in the vast Library entrusted to his care.  I often took delight in testing his knowledge of the City's good possessions. 'Tis true that he had an uncanny power of sensing and proving books for our Libraries Committee; by this our City has secured for future generations such a collection of books on art and knowledge  from paleolithic times to our own as is quite unequalled outside the British Museum.  By these it was his delight to whet the appetite of the sons of our city and he succeeded more than most men.  He was forever gathering men and women of Merseyside into habits of circulating the joys of the artists and craftsmen: he was a human pivot for all seekers of beauty and knowledge, and above all he was gifted with that awareness of spirit which recognises and is recognised by all true seekers.

With him it was possible to become acquainted with the best of the City - the best books and the best persons for any adventure of the spirit found in him an encourager who could and would apprise its highest value and welcome its most constructive possibilities.  He had no time for ferreting out evil; so absorbed was he in discovery and attracting attention to the beautiful.  He taught us us how like a child at first wonder, like a king at last to rest.

G.H.Parry continued

G.H. was an artist although he made his living as a librarian.  This is the only graphic example of his artistry that I possess.    He also worked in metals, copper boxes and jewelry out of precious metals.  He made a gold pendant with an opal set into an intricate design.  The piece was unfortunately stolen from our house in Palos Verdes in 1981.  

He died in 1933, the year of my birth.  He knew of my arrival and sent a drawing of a young man with a scythe over his shoulder, sketched by the famous Liverpool artist George Harris, a friend of my grandfather's.  He wrote " To Valerie, on the occasion of her birth."  It hangs today in my bedroom in La Costa Glen.

My grandfather was sufficiently prominent in Liverpool society that he was honored with a memorial service at the Liverpool Cathedral and a commendatory address delivered by the Very Reverend Dean of Liverpool on September 20, 1933.  If you wish to read it it is on a separate blog entitled Commendatory Address.

My Grandfather, G.H.Parry The Sandon Studio

This is a quote from page 120 of a book entitled "The Sandon Studio Society and the Arts": 

"During the year a fine, imaginative gesture was made to a struggling artist on the streets of Liverpool.  The Hon. Treasurer, G.H. Parry, walking between the club and the Picton Library where he was Deputy Chief Librarian, noticed how shabby the outfit of Professor Codman, who directed the Punch and Judy show in Lime Street, had become.  In talking to the Professor he learned that, owing to inability to replace his booth, this unique entertainment might have to be disbanded.  Parry raised the matter at an executive meeting and there was enthusiasm for raising a fund and providing a new outfit.  It was decided to ask for subscriptions amounting to L 50." My father, at the time of this reference, had apparently not achieved the rank of Chief Librarian of the Liverpool Library.  

My mother would talk of his love for the Sandon Studio.  There was a large white wall in one room where the graphic artists were invited to doodle,  resulting, no doubt, in a fascinating composite of work by the top artists of Liverpool at that time.



Drawing by G.H.Parry

Gladys Catherine Parry...continued

She met my handsome, dashing father when she was in her twenties.  He too loved travel and adventure, and worked for the Canadian Pacific Steamship Company.  He too had been born in the Liverpool area.   Their paths did not cross again for another 8 years.  When they found each other again, where or how I do not know, it was summer, 1932.   My father proposed, and offered a life of ease in Japan, where he worked for the CPR in Yokohama. CPS was a subsidiary of CPR, and employees had full reciprocal travel privileges on trains, and ships.  

My mother accepted, although she had two other proposals at the time.  My father remarked many years later that she 'didn't want him to get away again!'

G.H. was not too happy about his daughter's decision.  They were married in Japan, on September 22,  and honeymooned in Nikko.  Her father sent her return passage to England in case it didn't work out.  He also sent her a gold soverign , worth quite a lot in those days, 'in case she should ever be in need'.  She never needed it, and I have it to this day.

They leased a western style bungalow on the bluffs of Yokohama, overlooking the bund.  It had a screened porch in front, a living room, separate dining room and kitchen.  There were three bedrooms, one bathroom and servants' quarters in the back.  There was a landscaped garden in front with a high wall.  A fenced in side garden, and a wonderful view of the harbor.  

We had two servants, a married couple that lived in an unbelievably small room with a woven straw mat floor.  They slept on a futon which was aired in the sun, and rolled into the closet during the day.  They ate from a low table and knelt on cushions on the floor to eat.  We called the wife Ahmah-San.  She did the shopping, cleaning and some cooking.  Her husband kept the garden trim, attended to household chores, and also fancied himself a gourmet chef.  One time he served lamb chops for company, french style with the fringed paper 'panties' on the ends.  My father had a temper tantrum.  Nothing that effeminate was to be served in HIS house!

My mother soon became pregnant, and I was born the following July.  In the summer the Westerners living in Yokohama went to the mountains to escape the heat of the city.  The wives and children would stay for the summer and the husbands would return each weekend.  Everyone travelled by train. No one had cars.  Our transport was, besides trains, bicycles , shank's mare and an occasional taxi or rickshaw ride.  I was born in a sanitarium in the beautiful mountain resort of Karuizawa in the Japanese Alps. After it closed  my birth records were sent to Tokyo where they are to this day.

Gladys Catherine Parry Wilde

She was born in Birkenhead, April 28, 1900.   Her father from a poor Welsh family, was educated by a wealthy benefactor, along with this man's son.  They were tutored, so George Henry Parry never went to college.  When he aspired to be Chief Librarian of the Liverpool Library he was at first denied, not for merit, but because he did not have a sheepskin.   

He married a woman I know very little about.  She had been a seamstress before her marriage, and taught my mother many professional tricks for making slipcovers, drapes and tailored garments.  

My mother had a brother, Norman, younger by 8 years.  She did not talk much about her growing up years.  One recollection was washday, when their middle class family did the week's wash.  They had a large tin washtub with a fire under it to heat the water.  A washerwoman came to help them scrub, rinse, wring out and hang the sheets, towels and underclothing of a respectable Victorian family of four.  I do not know if any other relatives lived with them.

By the 1890's my mother must have been a trial to her father.  She wanted to cut her hair.  He refused while under his roof.  Yet in all my early days in Japan she spoke with great affection and pride about her father, G.H. as he was called. Women were not usually college educated in those days, but I once asked her what she would have taken if she had gone to college.  She said, "Science."  Chemistry and Botany were of great interest.

She longed to travel. She wanted a career and adventure.  She was given the opportunity to attend a secretarial school and was trained to a far higher standard than any such school today.  She could comfortably type 60 words per minute without a mistake.  She could out spell Webster's dictionary.  She knew Pitman shorthand and could record dictation  rapidly.  Perhaps with her father's influence, she managed the coveted position of "Lizzy Mint" on the Mauretaina, where her many skills were employed in the service of the ship's Captain as his personal secretary.  She sat at the Captain's table every night, entertained and wrote letters for his guests, met the likes of Charlie Chaplain and other luminaries crossing the Atlantic from New York to Liverpool.

One year the White Star Line, owner of the Mauretaina, decided to take the ship on a cruise to Egypt.  My mother would proudly relate that she had ridden a camel and visited the sensation of that day,  King Tut's Tomb.

She never experienced sea sickness, which meant she was often the only female in the ballroom after dinner, dancing with any handsome young man that could still stand.  In those days ship stabilizers were not what they are today, and a rolling sea could require fortitude.

She used to tell  of a storm so bad that the vessel had to be stopped to "heave to" bow into the wind, no forward way being possible.  She spoke of " a green one down the stack", good nautical-speak for a wave so high it sent water down one of the four smokestacks on the mighty Mauretania.  Adventure indeed.