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.
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