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.
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