Before It’S Too Late: My Life and My Recollections

By George Clark

I was born in Paris, France at 3:00 PM on September 6th 1939 to a French father and a Russian mother only six days after Hitlers Nazis invaded Poland. Within six (6) months my parents travel to Shanghai, China where my mother, believe it or not, has just accepted a position with Macys Department Store. This trip to China sets the stage for me, now just one year old, to be taken again by my parents to travel this time to Kobe, Japan in 1940 to be introduced to my new Grandparents.
So begins my adventure as my parents spend a month in Kobe, and then return to Shanghai in order to put their affairs in order before returning to Japan to Join me, her parents and my grandparents.. Then the Pearl Harbor attack takes place and they find themselves stranded in China while Im stranded in Japan with my grandparents who are in their mid-sixties, now with the responsibility of taking care of their one (1) year old grandson. I can only imagine what their thoughts were as they considered what lay ahead.
This book charts my experiences, close calls, and adventures for the next ten (10) years while living in war-torn and post-war Japan. I have also been blessed with a vivid memory making it possible for me to relive many of my early experiences, to the point that the more I wrote the more details I remembered.
My research has been limited to checking spelling and certain geographic facts, and Im writing this book as seen through the eyes of a ten (10) year old, although Im now in my mid-sixties. Nevertheless, I have tried to be as accurate as possible and stand by this narrative.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Sep 4, 2013
• ISBN: 9781491811306

George Clark

What you see here is a picture of one person, the author of this book, first as a young lad aged ten with a French name And pictured below is the same person as an adult, this time with an American name. This is a story I’ve wanted to tell for quite a few years, especially as I’m getting older, and being aware that virtually none of my family or friends know any of the details about the first ten (10) years of my life that I spent in Japan during and after The Second World War. I’m also mindful in this day and age of how many Americans take their life here for granted, scanning the hourly electronic headlines without relating to what is really happening worldwide. I’m concerned about the apathy I witness every day, as we see on occasion people in the street being stopped by a reporter and being asked questions about current or recent events. The answers are amazing to behold, as virtually 95% of the people asked these questions have no clue to the answer. As a refugee migrating from Japan in 1950 and seeing first-hand the devastation of the war, and then coming to America and realizing what a miracle nation this is has made me realize how lucky I have been, considering the millions throughout the world who never had the chance to emigrate. There are no simple solutions to what I’ve talked about here, but I have faith in the 300 million plus citizens of this great nation who never make it to the headlines. Our future lies with them, and I am fully confident that our nation is strong and will be able to overcome future challenges and obstacles.

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2013 by George Clark. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse 08/30/2013

ISBN: 978-1-4918-1132-0 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4918-1131-3 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4918-1130-6 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2013915502

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

CONTENTS

Introduction

My Life And My Recollections

Early Years

Tor Hotel And Father Alfred

Train Travel

Lake Hakone And Mount Fuji

War Clouds

Living In Oike, Japan

Experiences With Granny

Granny’s Breakdown

The B-29 American Bomber

The War Ends

Post-War Adventures

Tokyo, Yoyogi School, And The Warners

Karuizawa And Related Topics

Bobby George And My Bronchitis

American Cars

Stories Of My Father

First Contact With My Future Parents

More Adventures… . . 

Sailboat Ride

Transitions… Looking Towards America

Kamakura

Russian Orthdox Church

Finally To America

Trans Pacific Flight

Los Angeles And Charles Clark

Greenville, North Carolina

INTRODUCTION

I was born in Paris, France at 3:00 PM on September 6th 1939 to a French father and a Russian mother only six days after Hitler’s Nazis invaded Poland. Within six (6) months my parents travel to Shanghai, China where my mother, believe it or not, has just accepted a position with Macy’s Department Store. This trip to China sets the stage for me, now just one year old, to be taken again by my parents to travel this time to Kobe, Japan in 1940 to be introduced to my new Grandparents.

So begins my adventure as my parents spend a month in Kobe, and then return to Shanghai in order to put their affairs in order before returning to Japan to Join me, her parents and my grandparents. Then the Pearl Harbor attack takes place and they’ find themselves stranded in China while I’m stranded in Japan with my grandparents who are in their mid-sixties, now with the responsibility of taking care of their one (1) year old grandson. I can only imagine what their thoughts were as they considered what lay ahead.

This book charts my experiences, close calls, and adventures for the next ten (10) years while living in war-torn and post-war Japan. I have also been blessed with a vivid memory making it possible for me to relive many of my early experiences, to the point that the more I wrote the more details I remembered.

My research has been limited to checking spelling and certain geographic facts, and I’m writing this book as seen through the eyes of a ten (10) year old, although I’m now in my mid-sixties. Nevertheless, I have tried to be as accurate as possible and stand by this narrative.

MY LIFE AND MY RECOLLECTIONS

GEORGE EDWARD CLARK

Based on information from my mother a German bombing raid was taking place at 3:30 in the afternoon when I was born in Paris, France on September 6, 1939, six days after the Nazi invasion of Poland. And according to my birth certificate, which is handwritten in French, I was born in the province of Vanves where Paris may be located. However some confusion surrounds this conflicting information because the certificate indicates my birth to have taken place in Juan Le Pans which is a city not even close to Paris, but is instead located on the French Riviera. Although I’d like to clarify the matter, the odds are the truth will never be known since my mother died in 1998 at the age of 84.

Her maiden name was Ariadne Dovnarovitch, and she was born in 1914 to Russian parents. Her father Alexander, was captain of a navy warship in the Russian Crimean fleet, whose politics favored the Russian Czar, and he was thus considered a White Russian, while her mother Marie, to my knowledge was not a political activist but a homemaker.

Since her childhood my mother has preferred the name Ariane and she once told me about my grandfather Alexander, who had refused to join the Bolsheviks in 1917 when the revolution took place… even after being offerred numerous special considerations to support the Communist movement. As the result of his refusals, he was subsequently arrested, imprisoned and shortly thereafter executed by the Communists, known as Red Russians.

My grandmother Marie, as a young mother was now facing difficult and dangerous times, having grown up in a wealthy family whose members belonged to the Czar’s inner group… all having held various high-ranking Ministerial positions within the government. With the revolution taking place they now faced the loss of their lives, their life-styles, their wealth, and certainly their political futures as well. She in turn had enjoyed a life of grace, laughter, gentility and wealth, while sharing her childhood days with two other sisters, Vera who was older, and Toscia who was younger. Now with the revolution at their doorstep, their age of innocence was about to come to an end, as they faced an unstable future, with years of uncertainty, fear and danger, under conditions that I can’t fully comprehend even today.

As my story continues, and based on what I have been told, my grandmother, after the loss of her husband, was now faced with some grim decisions. She was a White Russian with a three to four year old daughter, (my mother), with no job skills and no place to go. In addition she was now an outcast as far as the communists were concerned and feared she would be caught and imprisoned herself. In the meantime her mother had died from blood poisoning after being run over by a horse-drawn streetcar, her father had been executed, other relatives had scattered to the four winds, and she and her sisters, along with her young daughter were now alone in an alien and strange environment. It was a time for choices. They could either stay in Russia to face the inevitable, or they could leave, which was the only practical choice they could make.

My desire in assuming this project, is to try to write about my own experiences in a relaxed writing style. I don’t want this to be a tedious or boring read, and I’ll sometimes take the liberty to elaborate on various topics or experiences on which I have specific opinions. So let’s have some fun, as I discover my writing style and you learn something about me. Also, please remember that this text expresses only my opinions which I’ve portrayed as accurately as I can.

So far all of this may sound very Russian, even melodramatic I suppose, but the horrible experiences and persecutions the Russian people have endured over past centuries has given them, as a people, a somewhat fatalistic national persona in which they seem to actually revel in their misery. Consider for example the alcoholism problem that has dominated their national psyche, to the extent the Russian people until recently, in my opinion, had largely given up and survived with a sense of hopelessness. To illustrate my point, and this is based on what I’ve been told by American missionaries, that even today many major Russian cities have acceptable infrastructure within the city limits, but try driving out of the city to another city one will discover that after ten or twenty miles the highway suddenly stops, to be replaced by a two lane paved or dirt road, or in some cases nothing. I’m certainly not suggesting there are no roads leading to and from Moscow, but what I am saying is that they are a relatively backward nation when compared to Europe and the Western world. I’ve had church missionaries tell me that riding on Russian trains is like a time warp going back several centuries as you observe the backwardness of their agrarian society. What the communist propaganda machine had told the world over the years had been a big sham… a lie… and the Russian people know it. Remember also, that until quite recently the entire Russian population had been segmented, with a very small and wealthy ruling class of less than ten million in control of the nation, while the rest of the population subsisted on whatever their leaders would allow. In addition, they were told by Lenin first, and later by Stalin, that universal equality would elevate the communist philosophy to new heights and perhaps even world domination. But then Stalin had all the answers, as he methodically exterminated over thirty million Russian citizens and Jews during his tenure… all for the sake of universal equality and the proletariat…" !

Over the years my mother had been reluctant to share her early experiences with me. I suppose this is because of what she witnessed and experienced, but I still don’t know why she didn’t provide me with more facts, even though I had asked her for more information on numerous occasions. Nevertheless, let me tell you what she has told me, to which I’ll add my own personal experiences. I also expect this narrative to evolve into an autobiography of my early life up to around 1950 when I arrived in America. Any comments about my adult life are probably unnecessary at this point, since all family members have drawn their own conclusions on whatever impact I’ve had within the family, either positive or negative. So let’s leave it at that. In the meantime, as my story unfolds there will be gaps in the time line, so if the reader will indulge me, I’ll continue.

The Russian and Siberian winters are famous for their severity and numbing cold. And so during winter of either 1917 or 1918 this small group of women including my mother booked passage on a train headed to Sakhalin Island in order to escape a Russia that was rapidly being closed to the outside world. Sakhalin Island is north of Hokkaido, which is the northernmost island in the Japanese-island chain. It was nearly a three-thousand-mile trip under extremely difficult circumstances, and the cold was so severe, the train would often freeze to the tracks every time it stopped. Over the years I’ve read several books written by Russian refugees who have described similar trips during this period, and the hardships that were encountered. Along the way there were skirmishes between the Cossacks who were loyal to the Czar and the Bolsheviks who were chasing the refugees. There were bandits on the trains who stole and raped. There was hardly any food, and the competition to find a warm place to lie down bordered on the desperate. When someone died, they were simply thrown off the train like a sack of potatoes. This was not a first-class train ride with eggs sunny-side up in the dining car and drinks in the club car. In fact most of the cars were boxcars, where the occupants would build a fire directly in the car itself. After several weeks of terrible hardships this pitifully small band of women ultimately arrived in Harbin, one of the larger cities in eastern Siberia, where they were lucky to find accomodations with political loyalists. They rested here for a short time until making the last leg of the trip to Sakhalin Island, this time without harassment.

The story line becomes somewhat clouded at this point, but it was here on Sakhalin Island that my grandmother Marie met a man she later married. His name was Alfred Mildner, a prominent and wealthy hotelier who had been born in Alcase Lorraine.

Father Alfred, as we used to call him, was born in Colmar, a small village in the coal-producing region of Alcase. He grew up with, and went to school with the philanthropist Albert Schweitzer of all people. They were close friends and maintained a life-long correspondence, which I didn’t discover until several years after he came to North Carolina to live with John and Ariane. But I’m getting ahead of myself so let me get back on track again.

EARLY YEARS

Although some of my early memories are murky, my earliest recollections have to do with the sensation of being pushed in a stroller and being attended by my new Japanese amah… considering that my original amah went back to China with my parents. I can recall my fascination in watching the wheels as they crossed over obstacles and negotiated sidewalks. I can also recall the luxurious feeling of being pampered and catered-to as I surveyed my surroundings, while being transported in my stroller. And maybe it was from these sensations that I developed my great joy of travel and exploration.

I don’t think I was a capricious or spoiled child, although I recall being very well taken care of at the Tor Hotel in Kobe, Japan. Father Alfred owned this hotel, and my arrival there, at the age of one took place in late 1940, after a somewhat circuitous journey, from France to Shanghai, China where my mother and father Edouard had taken me. As I understand the story, Mother had worked at the Macy’s Department store chain in Paris and had been offerred a position in their Shanghai store shortly after the war started in Europe. I’m confused here as to how this came to pass, considering that the Japanese were already fighting in China prior to Pearl Harbor. Under those circumstances, I can’t imagine why Macy"s would offer her or anyone a job in a war zone, much less having her move halfway around the world to accept it. But then there are so many holes in the stories I’ve been told that I don’t have a true sense of what actually happened.

But I also know that sometimes in life truth is stranger than fiction, so rather than questioning all I’ve been told, let’s assume for the sake of fairness that most of what I’m writing here is basically accurate.

In any event, my Mother my Father and my Chinese amah got settled in Shanghai and shortly thereafter traveled from Shanghai to Kobe by steamship, a two day