Hachiojiyama

This is Hachiojiyama in Honmoku, Yokohama. My great grandfather bought the hill in about 1900 and the people in the area came to be call it Herumu-yama, or Helm hill. My grandfather and several of his siblings had summer places on that hill. My great aunts used to row around the bend to Sankeien, where the family there would serve barley tea. (before it became a park) This picture was taken by my father after the war. In pre-war days there used to be a staircase down to the beach. When I was at the LA Times, our research assistant says her mother recalls how one of the Helm mothers would ring a gong to call the kids up for dinner. I walked on that beach as a young child, but all of that coastline was later filled in and is now sadly lined with oil storage tanks and refineries.