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 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 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 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.

Christian Science in Shanghai

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)

The Gomersall connection continued….

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.

A question of faith….the Gomersall connection

From 1924 until 1928, my mother and her sister were sent to boarding school in Bournemouth, England. They made the passage to England by ship, accompanied by their parents. After settling in and doing some sightseeing as a family, their parents returned home to Shanghai. The girls would never see their mother again, but I’ll elaborate on that later.

My mother was 13 and her sister was 12 so it was their first time away from home and “away” it really was; about 12,000 miles. It took six weeks aboard ship, sailing down the China coast, through Indonesia, across the Indian Ocean into the Red Sea. They transited the Suez Canal and crossed the Mediterranean Sea, past Gibraltar and into the Atlantic. The last leg was northward along the coasts of Spain, Portugal and France and finally, to London.

I know almost nothing of their first three years at school, other than the few stories I’d heard of their escapades while staying with schoolmates during vacations. Fortunately, at the start of their final year, 1928, they purchased a journal and over the Christmas holidays and New Year, they made their first entries. It was a joint venture, with both girls taking turns writing in the book. Reading this diary gave me a window into their lives that I’d never have known had they not kept it.

Just a quick note before returning to the subject of the “Gomersall Connection” and that is to say, that throughout the year, both girls appear to have been firmly ensconced in the Anglican or Church of England religion and often mentioned attending church, sometimes more than once in a day. They seemed to have taken confirmation classes at school, passed, and took part in the rituals at completion. The occasion is noted in the diary entry of March 21st, 1928. They were confirmed by the Bishop of Winchester, at Saint Michael’s Church. The Bishop joined them for tea after the service. I might also mention that their father was married at and Anglican Church in Hong Kong so if any religion can be associated with our family at this point, Anglican would be my guess. This was about to change.

About this time, my grandfather was on his way, overland by train from Shanghai, via Berlin. He intended to spend time in England and tour Europe with the girls at the end of the school year, before they all returned home to China.

In the interest of brevity I’ll skip forward to September 8th when they all boarded the NDL “SS Saarbrucken” at Rotterdam, on their homebound passage. Also aboard the ship was a “Mrs Gomersall” who according to journal entries, joined them at many dinners aboard ship as well as on shore excursions in several ports along the way.

On the 27th of October, they arrived back in Shanghai. This is the last entry about the passage.

Got up early and went on deck. Last morning on board.
Had got into the river already. Water yellow and muddy.
Had breakfast, then packed.
Watched entrance to Shanghai from top deck. Band playing.
River Whangpoo like Thames. Busy etc.

Came aside wharf at 12 p.m. Saw Mr Letton-Samson waiting for us.
Said goodbye to stewardess, Captain, Purser etc. Went to customs.
Left in own car for Gomersall’s in Hankow Road. Nice flat. Good food.
After dinner went for dance with Mr Wolf and Schreeck to Majestic Hotel.
Car broke down. Walked. Dancing fine.
Returned 1:30 a.m. Fog.
Dead tired.

N.H.

A question of faith….continued

Since my previous post on the subject, I’ve done more research and by chance received some information from some fellow Facebook Group members. One of my original questions involved how and when my family became involved in “Christian Science” While I have not considered myself a “follower” of the CS ideology, I have on many occasions defended it based on my own family’s beliefs in it. Christian Science is often mistaken for like-named religious orders such as Scientology, Science of Mind and even Jehovah Witnesses. I was quick to label these as whacky, crack-pot cults, nothing like the religion that my own family followed. At best, I was viewing CS through rose colored glasses! At worst, I’ve come to understand how much of it took root in my psyche as a child and the damage its caused.

I’ve hesitated to broach the subject of religion in any of my on-line posting as I don’t wish to cast aspersions on anyone’s beliefs. That’s not my intent. I simply want to know more about CS and mostly, how and why my family became involved. At this point I’m leaning towards Shanghai in the late 1920s. The “why” is still a mystery. More on this to follow…..