While I was digging info up on the last blog entry, it came to mind that there were a few similarities shared between my GGF and myself. I was always interested in communications, ham radios, phones etc. In 1961, I convinced my grandfather to send me to school to study electronics. I enrolled at RCA Institutes in Los Angeles. There were always ads in magazines, extolling the opportunities in the trades of tomorrow. As it turned out, I think the school was really a bit of a scam; sort of like “Trump University” It was located on the sixth floor of the Pacific Electric Building at 6th and Main in downtown Los Angeles. The ground floor was the central bus depot so it was a convenient location even in those first few weeks when I was staying with my aunt up in La Crescenta. Still, it took about an hour to get into LA each morning. Classes started early, like 7:00 AM and we were done by 1:00 PM. There was only about seven of us in the classes so we’d meet for coffee at Cole’s before class and often had lunch there later too. They served the best beef dip!

This photo is from an earlier time; looks like mid 40s. The large opening on the right by the USO sign is where the busses came out. The view would be looking north along Main Street with 6th by the bus. Streetcars were still in service when I was living there.

We always had plenty of homework so it wasn’t long before all that travel time was seen as a waste. I needed to find a place to live that was closer to school. On July 1, 1961, I moved into The Kipling Residence Club on 3rd Street between Vermont and Western.

The Kipling is a story in itself. Some day I might write about my time in residence there. The Kipling was once known as a “Gentlemen’s Hotel” which meant it catered to traveling sales people who needed a local base for extended periods; weeks or even months. The hotel had six stories and was serviced by one of those rickety old elevators with a folding gate. The building was U-shaped, with a center patio area for recreation; with table tennis, BBQs, and regular guest parties. In 1961 I rented a room with private bath, bed/sitting room, phone, through the switchboard, and breakfast and supper five days a week, served by waiters in the dining room. The price for all this, was a staggering $112.00/month. Wait staff and desk clerks usually shared rooms, but paid zero for the package; a great deal for those on a strict budget. For me, it was convenient and fun. I usually got a ride downtown the mornings and after classes I walked a block down to 7th Street where I took the streetcar home. It stopped right in front of the Kipling.

The Kipling of my day was home to an eclectic group of residents. There were students and salesmen, nurses and mechanics, musicians and wannabe movie stars. There were old-timers like Doc Fry, who’s hacking cough was such a delight at supper, and old Mrs Eccles, who at 83, was waiting to die while seated in the only comfortable chair in the lobby! She never missed a chance to wag a bony finger as tempting young people passed by, or the sound level was decibel too high in the TV room.

So, Mrs Eccles was the oldest guest at The Kipling” and yours truly, at the tender age of 15 was the youngest, which brings me, in a round-about way, to the point of this post. It struck me that back in 1861 my GGF, William Leyland Hunter, at 16, was the youngest guest living at The Black Swan in London, far from his home and family. He was soon to embark on a journey that would take him to the other end of the world, to China, where he had nobody and couldn’t read or speak the language!

Almost 100 years to the day later, in 1961, I would also be the youngest guest, living in a hotel in Los Angeles. I’m sure Mrs Eccles still holds the “oldest guest” honors and my own record as “youngest guest” probably still remains unbroken.

So, I wonder how the conversation might go, should GGF Hunter and I be able to trade tales over a pint or two? One thing’s for sure, my life was a whole lot easier and safer than his. I could easily head back to the safety of home turf for the $29 price of a Greyhound Bus ticket. WLH would need to endure over 3 months aboard a sailing ship being tossed around by some of the most dangerous seas on earth.

Lastly, if I don’t do anything too crazy, I’ll be 80 this year! WLH died just shy of his 50th birthday! He was around for a good time, not a long time!

I’ve spent some time today on my Ancestry.com family tree. Going over the entries for my great grandfather, William Leyland Hunter and his timeline for 1861 I’d posted a copy of a census, showing his place of residence that day. To view larger, I think you need to right click on the image and open in a new window.

At the time I didn’t delve any deeper but today I thought I’d take a closer look. I entered the actual address, 6 Carter Lane, in Google Earth and did a street view. It’s in an old part of London near St Pauls, and was at one time known as “The King’s Wardrobe” It was so named for the actual storage location for the royal robes and at times much of the royal jewels and treasure. Geographically, it was St Gregory’s near St Pauls. A further Google search gave me The Black Swan Tavern, which was a public house/inn back in the day. The buildings at that location today appear to be newer, but I found an old painting that shows a view of The Black Swan Tavern with St Paul’s in the background. One can clearly see how it must have looked when my GGF William Leyland Hunter was in residence. It brings to mind tales of Jack the Ripper and other scary stories! What an adventure for a lad of 16. I wonder if he knew that just a few years later he’d be on a sailing ship on his way to China?

Above is a list of residents at the 1861 Census along with their age and occupation. WLH was listed as a tea salesman and was 16 years old. With the exception of the inn keeper’s 2 year old son, my GGF was the youngest guest. On the subject of young men making a start in life, I must remember to post a paragraph or two about how my own life followed a somewhat similar path although not nearly as daring! As a matter of note, census day in 1861 was April 7th. Do keep this in mind.

DNA is still a mystery to me but I recently tried the new “Compare” feature on Ancestry and noticed an odd discrepancy between my own, my daughter and my grandson’s ethnicity breakdowns when compared to other family testers. My main Asian factor is from “Central & Eastern China,” third line down on the chart, ( 6% ) as is my daughter’s ( about 3% ) and lastly, my grandson’s ( only about 1% ) Everyone else’s Asian is from “Southern China,” fourth line down on chart. This makes me wonder again about our origins and whether we all had the same set of common ancestors that we believed.

Recently, some new information has come to light about our “Uncle James” Hunter. The clipping below is from a religious oriented publication know as “The Continent” There are several listings as shown between the years 1922 and 1926. As James’ whereabouts are a mystery during this period, it reasonable to wonder if this might be him?

This page from the May 15, 1919 issue shows J.A. Hunter assigned to serve in Peking which further substantiates his connection. It appears that this same James Hunter attended the McCormick Theological Seminary in Chicago as is shown in the page below. For a larger view please right click on the image and “open in new window” To the best of my knowledge, none of the four Hunter offspring in China, had middle names, but again, I know very little about James.

McCormick Theological Seminary

Another mystery that keeps cropping up, is the relationships of the fours children of William Leyland Hunter and Anna Hunter ( alias Kot Choy ) The connection between my grandfather Tobias Hunter and his sister May, just two years his junior, has never really been in question. They were close their whole lives were in constant contact. Uncle George Hunter, my grandfather’s elder brother by two years, was also well connected both in business as well as personally. Tobias and May had similar looks as brother and sister might and George could well have taken more after his father which would not be unusual.

This brings me to Uncle James of whom there was little if any mention throughout my lifetime. I vaguely recall my mother’s mentioning “Uncle Jim” but little was ever said. My interest became a little more concentrated after finding other records and news items regarding the passing of his wife in 1933 and he himself not long after his mother passed away in 1937. His daughter remained in the family residence at 11 Shelley Street in Hong Kong through the war years and she passed away there in 1944.

All four Hunter offspring; James, George, Tobias, and May are listed in the death notice of Anna Hunter in January 1937 SCMP. Their ages are also given and all match. I’ve always wondered if there was a possibility that not all the children had the same parents but they may all share at least one. DNA has given me a positive link to the Hunter side which also has living links to both George and May. Further, May’s granddaughter did a mitochondrial DNA test and it returned with a C7a2 group which is almost exclusively Asian. This points to Anna Hunter alias Kot Choy as the source. All our living testers share a small amount of Asian in the autosomal DNA test and that would appear to unite us as one family.

The one unknown exception is James Hunter. We know nothing about him really, other than he had also had a Chinese alias. His wife Emma’s origins are another mystery as we have no maiden name or marriage documents. Their daughter Ellen also had an Chinese alias and the fact that she was NOT interned in Hong Kong during the war might indicate she was more Chinese in appearance. As I have no pictures of James, his wife, or his daughter this presents another “Jade Wall” that needs to be penetrated.

I’ve recently found two small items that might shed some light. One is an excerpt from a letter written by my grandfather to my mother when I was young and at a troublesome stage. He was suggesting I be packed off to a boarding school since I was about 10 and he thought that acceptable unlike his own circumstances where he was sent to the Diocesan School in Hong Kong at age 5 1/2. He wrote of James, who had apparently been a handful and his mother did not handle it correctly as per the illustration below:

What I find interesting is that when my grandfather refers to “Uncle James” that would be correct, as he was my mother’s uncle. What’s odd, is that he calls him granny’s “eldest son” and not “my brother” which may signify that he and James were not of the exact same parentage. To my knowledge James and his wife had only the one child, Ellen however she may also have had discrepancies in her family relationships. I will delve further into this in my next post.

Near the start of this blog, on April 24th, 2021, I posted a photo of a painting which had hung on our living room wall from the late 1960s. It was believed to be my great grandfather William Leyland Hunter. It seems to me that is who were told it was, and over the years we just accepted it. The painting was passed around; from my mother to me when she passed away, then to my daughter Donna Michelle, then her daughter Brianna and eventually back to me. As I began to dig into it, I wondered where it came from? Who exactly had given it to my mother? Another thing that bothered me was that the man appeared to be older than what my GGF would have been as he’d died at the age of 50. He also died broke so I wondered how a painting would have been commissioned! At least one of his brothers, from the same time period, had a photo, so why would he be different?

So, recently, with the aid of my daughter, I tackled my storage locker and uncovered some very interesting items. One was a letter to my grandfather Tobias Hunter, written in 1966 making reference to a painting of “John Hunter” As I had suspected at one point, the painting was not of William Leyland Hunter, but actually his father, John Hunter, who was a partner at Binyon’s Tea in Manchester, England. John Hunter was certainly more affluent and he lived until the age of 67, which more accurately matched the age of the gentleman depicted in the painting. John died at Ulverston, Lancashire in May of 1882. With this recently discovered written testimony, the mystery of the painting has been solved. There is more to this story but I’ll save it for a later post.

Again, thanks to Andy, who discovered this video on-line. I’ve done a little creative editing of the video to insert an original black and white photo from my family album. It’s added just near the end of the film. I’m inserting a link to the video which I have on my Google drive, but I’ll add in the finished sketch here too. Sadly I’ve still not been able to find out who this artist is, but I will continue to seek him out and hopefully, at some point, I’ll be able to purchase a copy of his amazing work!

Link to video: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1olr1R9d13-tnDXL8N1pl_eX3xQWDL36Q/view?usp=sharing

Last fall I was doing some research into the Columbia Circle housing development in Shanghai where my grandfather and family lived from about 1930 until 1945. I discovered that the family of the sci-fi author J G Ballard also lived there. Ballard wrote the book “Empire of the Sun” which was made into a movie by Steven Spielberg.

This took me to an on-line Ballard fan club, and a few posts later I was contacted by a man who told me he lived across the street from our family home on Amherst Road ( now Xinhua Road ) in Shanghai. His name is Andy and he wrote that he could see our house as he was typing his email to me. It was night, but he said that if I liked, he’d go across and take some photos the following morning.

As promised, when I checked my mail the following day, the photos were there. Along with the pictures, Andy also sent a hand drawn map showing the locations the photos were taken from.

Over the next few months Andy and I kept in touch. Then one day he told me that the Xinhua neighborhood was doing a Heritage Event and that he’d noticed that they’d used a graphic of our Columbia Circle house as their theme. He asked me for my address and offered to send me some of the promotional items; a small notebook, some face masks, etc. These item arrived via DHL in a matter of a few days.

On Sunday, November 4, 1934, the First Church of Christ Scientist, Shanghai held services in this new church building, located at the corner of Avenue and Kiaochow roads. This is the first Christian Science church to be erected in China, and the opening service will be one of dedication, the edifice being finished and ready for occupancy, free from all debt.

The cornerstone for this building was laid on March 22, 1934, and this structure is the material embodiment of the aims and hopes of a small group of people who, for the past twenty years, have met for the holding of Christian Science services. It is built according to the designs of the firm of Elliott Hazzard, Architects, and the style adhered to in the curved facade is derived from the classic Roman. Brick, covered with plaster, was used in its construction, and the exterior is similar in appearance to buff limestone. Above the entrance doorway, in bronze letters, are the words “First Church of Christ Scientist,” and wrought-iron lanterns of artistic design flank the central doorway.In conforming to the shape of this building site, the semi-circular or fan-shaped plan seemed the only possible solution. This necessity, however, proved a desirable opportunity, as the arrangement ensuing is especially well adapted to Christian Science services, permitting a convenient seating arrangement with respect to the Readers’ desk.

The interior finish throughout of this building, while modern and artistic in every respect, has been kept simple and restrained, with the idea of preserving an atmosphere of quiet repose and dignity. It must be conceded that the entire edifice, within and without, is an admirable achievement in decorative and classic design, combined with most attractive though subdued furnishings, a notable and outstanding addition to the fast-growing collection of Shanghai’s fine buildings.

In 1914, the first public Christian Science Reading Room was opened and since that time a Reading Room has been constantly maintained, the present one being located at Room 8b, Central Arcade, 49 Nanking Road. The first free public lecture on Christian Science was given in 1915.

In the year 1928 this Society had attained a membership sufficient to become organized as First Church of Christ Scientists, Shanghai, and thus it is known today. Services were held in the Masonic Hall on the Bund until that building was demolished, after which they were held at the Royal Asiatic Society’s building on Museum Road ( today’s Huqiu Road)

When the American Masonic Temple was built on Route Dufour ( today’s Urumqi Road S. ) they arranged to hold their services there, and have been in that location ever since. The First Church of Christ Scientist of Boston, Mass, and for many years resident in the home of Mary Baker Eddy, the founder of Christian Science, will lecture in Shanghai, in this new church edifice, on Sunday evening, December 2, 1934, at 9:15pm.

(The North-China Herald November 7, 1934)

I decided to look a little further and I found a “William Charles Gomersall” who had just started China Engineers Ltd in Shanghai. He became a leading industrialist and was instrumental in the local cotton and woolen mill trade. Like Tobias, and George Hunter, he also believed in the future of Shanghai and stayed after the Japanese occupation. I think it’s likely the families knew each. He was also a devoted Christian Scientist, joining in 1915 and becoming an associate member, then full member. Rising within the church hierarchy he was appointed to the position of chairman in 1941.  During the war William Gomersall was interned with his wife and three daughters but stayed on to rebuild China Engineers after the liberation. He was one of the last to leave Shanghai following the communist takeover, wrongly believing he could still make a contribution. As a follow-up I checked my copy of Greg Leck’s “Captives of Empire” and found that Elizabeth Gomersall, was interned at Lincoln Road Camp with my maternal grandfather Tobias Hunter. She was William Gomersall’s mother and was seventy three at the time ( 1901 Census she was 29 and Charles was 5 ) William and his family were interned at Lunghwa Camp, along with my grandfather’s Geddes Trading accountant, Fred Artindale and his family. There’s no doubt that the families knew one another, both before and after the war.

William Charles Gomersall, though born in England, was Eurasian. His father was Wong, Fung How and his mother, Elizabeth Gomersall. He was adopted by his mother’s parents, Richard and Amelia ( nee Read ) Gomersall and raised and educated in the UK.

So how does any of this make any difference to me? I suppose in the grand scheme of things, not very much, but because Christian Science has played a rather major role in my life, knowing when and why my family became involved seems important to me. The time-frame is becoming narrower the more I learn. It seems clear that in 1928 we were not CS. A question remains; did we know the Gomersalls before that homeward passage, or did a friendship begin aboard the SS Saarbrucken and continue once everyone was home in Shanghai. Its obvious that the friendship had grown to the point that instead of going home after six weeks aboard ship, everyone went to the Gomersall’s residence, and the party continued.

Clearly, William Charles Gomersall was a CS at his point and had risen in their ranks. I would assume his mother was also CS. His father had passed away by then.