Subject: PETER JOSEPH LAWLESS & CLARISSE BALMER-GERBER LAWLESS

Dear Mr. Pander,

I hope the following information regarding my grandparents will be helpful for your archives.

Peter Joseph Lawless, an Irishman, was born in County Wexford in 1880. Clarisse Balmer–Gerber was born in Montreux, near Bern, Switzerland. They were married in 1910 and had two daughters. Georgia was born with Down’s Syndrome and lived her life in Switzerland.

Mary Mavis (my mother) was born in Tientsin, North China, 1920.

My grandfather was the Chief of Police in Tientsin. At the time Tientsin was lifetime leased to the British Crown. I was told that my grandmother was a missionary, and after reading the Helsby’s book, I would assume with the Orient Missionary Society.

In 1934 my grandfather knew of the impending invasion of North China by the Japanese and sent my mother who was 14 years of age to Switzerland. My mother was never able to speak of those days of leaving her parents and traveling such a distance. I only knew that my grandparents were in a prison camp, Weihsien, during the war.

In Meredith and Christine Helsby’s book, He Goes Before Them…Even Into Prison, my grandmother is mentioned on page 102. Her name is slightly misspelled, which is certainly understandable. She died of typhoid fever just eight days before the Americans liberated the camp.

After the war my grandfather testified at the International Military Tribunal for the Far East, also known as the Tokyo War Crimes Tribunal. He eventually settled in Taunton, Somerset, England.

My mother left Switzerland to live in London in 1937. She was in nursing school at the time of the Blitz and survived forty nights of the German bombing. She was a registered nurse when she met and married my father, an American soldier from Poteet, Texas. After the war was over, she sailed on the HMS Queen Mary (a mother and baby ship) with my sister to the United States.

My grandfather came to the States to visit my family in 1950. We lived in San Antonio, Texas, and I remember him clearly…a large man who wore walking shorts and long socks, something American men did not do in the ‘50’s. He dearly loved my sister and me, and wrote frequent letters to us. Grandfather died in 1952 and is buried in Taunton, Somerset, England.

I remember my mother telling me that my grandparents loved the Chinese people.

Sincerely,
Clarisse Blair

Sent: Wednesday, June 2, 2021 2:54 PM
To: 'Miles Halton'
Cc: 'weihsien@proximus.be'

Subject: RE: My grandfather in Weihsein

Dear Miles,

Thanks very much for your message and interest in our website.

From the beginning, more than twenty years ago, and still now, this website is non-profit and free access ― patiently built, page by page with all our memories of those remote days in WWII. Many of the ex-prisoners who have helped me to create this website are no longer living.

What will happen after? Only goodness knows!

You are therefore free to recopy whatever you think interesting on a HDD. It is the reason why many files are: *.pdf. ― because I’d rather read a book on a paper support than on a screen.

This whole website is more than 3K-pages thick and takes 26Go of memory space on my provider’s HDD.

Glad you enjoy the whole thing 😊
Best regards,
Leopold

From: Miles Halton
Sent: Wednesday, June 2, 2021 1:15 PM
To: weihsien@proximus.be

Subject: My grandfather in Weihsein

Hello

I have looked at your Weihsien Paintings website a few times over the year and you have a drawing of my grandfather (also Miles Halton) on the site. It’s a great online resource, but I sometimes worry that as things fade from living memory websites such as these tend to drop off the internet. Do I need to worry about this or should I copy to my hard drive the pages I want to preserve?

Best wishes
Miles

Miles Halton
SureFire Events
01258 447 041
email: miles@surefire-events.com
website: www.surefire-events.com

From: Clarisse Blair
Sent: Tuesday, June 1, 2021 5:43 PM
To: 'Leoplod PANDER'

Subject: RE: PETER JOSEPH LAWLESS and CLARISSE LAWLESS

Dear Mrs. Knuppe,

Thank you so very much for writing to me. My heart is so full this morning, as I received your note and one from Mrs. Gay (Talbot) Stratford. You kind words touched me deeply. I was named for her and truly hope I honor her. Mrs. Stratford wrote of a little song that the group sang at the end of the girls’ meetings. My grandmother was Swiss, as you might remember, and I am sure she had a lovely voice.

I am in the process of gathering a few pictures, one of her and one of my grandfather Peter. He came to the states in 1952 and I remember him clearly.

I do have a lovely picture of her and one of my grandfather, clearly taken in China, standing beside some yard sculptures of Chinese animals, for no better description. I will post those along with my memories of what I know about my grandparents.

Again, I am so grateful for your note.
Sincerely,
Clarisse

Clarisse Blair
Diamond B Tractors
16125 FM 624
Robstown, TX 78380 USA
(361) 767-2223