In the course of our long years in Japan, members of the Helm family met and married into many interesting families of old “Japan hands,” of whom one of the most interesting is the Bernard family. My great aunt Lillian was the daughter of Charles Helm and his first cousin Louise. Lillian married Barnie Bernard, whose father was C.B. Bernard. C.B. Bernard came to Yokohama in the early 1870s and was member of many of Yokohama’s early institutions, including YC&AC. Bernard was a tea merchant, but he is best known for his beautiful woodblock prints and water colors.
At the beginning of World War II, Lillian and her family, who were British, had to leave Japan. Since they were part-Japanese, they were not allowed to enter the United States. “Not wanting us to be put in a detention camp,” Pauline writes, “my folks chose to live in Venezuela and later Argentina, during the war years. We went back to Japan in 1949, but Grandpa died in 1947.”
They urged C.B.Bernard to accompany them, but he didn’t want to leave his Japanese wife behind so he stayed. He and his wife spent the war years in a prison camp where they nearly starved to death. At the time, C.B. Bernard had one granddaughter, Lillian’s first daughter Pauline, who he called Peto. During their separation, C.B. Bernard drew little pictures accompanied by stories that he sent to his granddaughter.
The picture above on the top is one of a series of pictures that C.B. Bernard sent to Pauline. (The one on the bottom is a print Bernard did of Osaka.) The picture on the top was accompanied by a note written on letterhead of the Yokohama United Club, a lunch club popular at the time. (My grandfather used to complain that the Yokohama United Club wouldn’t allow him to become a member because he was half Japanese.) The message says:
Dear Peto,
Ask Papi to sing it to you.
Grandpa
January 28 ’41.
The drawing shows Bernard and his wife waving farewell to the ship as it steams off to Argentina. The words were meant to be sung to the tune “It’s a long long way to Tipperary.”
My cousin, and former high school teacher at Yokohama International School, Bertie Bernard, now alternates between homes in London and Yokohama. He is writing a history of the Bernards, and I look forward to reading that book.