Desmond Stewart Mactavish, my father, was born in Shanghai, China in 1916. That is basically all I knew about his Chinese connection until a week or so after he died in 1973. As I was growing up, there were things which could have enlightened me. Only some of these I noticed but about which I didn't entertain the next thought.
My grandmother, Winifred Maud Ross (1892-1957), was Granny, and among the many things I loved her for were her stories, especially those she told about growing up in China. She lived in a house in San Rafael, California, full of art and artifacts from China and Australia.
As a small child, I heard about a giant who caught her head as she fell on the street in a crowd of people, saving her from injury. She warned me about earthquakes and being swallowed up, because that's what earthquakes do in China, swallow people.
She told me not to ring the gong on the staircase landing, but of course someone did, not knowing why we were forbidden such pleasure. She'd come running to see who did it and always knew who did--my brother. I was the culprit once and just stood there awaiting frenzied concern arriving from the kitchen.
There was a family recipe from Shanghai days. My father said he loved it. Someone, I don't believe Granny or my father, cooked it. My father called the dish "de chaws" or "det chaw". I liked it, cooked twice as I recall for our family dinner. I don't know the ingredients.
There were books on the bookshelf at home. I looked at them as a young child old enough to notice the illustrations of a different kind of place from where we lived.
There were also photo albums. I looked at the photos in each and they were mysterious, almost inexplicably foreign for a boy not curious enough to ask questions. Without proffered commentary on this and that and who and what, the albums just sat there mostly . . . sleeping on different sets of shelves as I moved too frequently throughout my life.
Or was it like that, not curious enough? Memory fails me, but since 1973 I have had suspicions--about the Chinese Exclusion Act, US immigration and naturalization, trace genetic traits, a lost world and lost wealth, and about what I believe was my father's natural humility, or his closely held cards as a respected and successful California businessman. He talked sometimes about "Chinese
inscrutability." Was he talking about himself, like pointing a finger with your thumb always pointing back at you?
Many times I asked my father to say something in Chinese. The only expression he gave me was for a silly or ignorant person, in reference to no one in particular, but I could use the word(s) at school if warranted.
Later it was reported, to my ears in 1973 or before my mother died, that once Dad gave a speech in Chinese at a "luncheon" in San Francisco to friends and business associates. (I knew my father had some British English background. He used the word bloody often, for example.) All in attendance, the report went, were shocked to learn that he could do that. "They never knew," although his schoolmates from high school in San Rafael to his Stanford days must have had clues.
In short, Dad never went through his books or albums with me or talked about China. And in the end, he and I hadn't enough time, or we squandered what we had on other matters of the day, perhaps some regrettable event growing out of a particular phase in my growing up. So by the time I was awakening in my late twenties--as boys seem to do "later"--he was gone. I was angry and held deep grief for seven or eight years, and I believed after his early death I too would not live longer than he.
"I was just getting to know him as an adult. I thought we'd have more time."
I have outlived my father, and by this time in life I have the presence of mind to articulate questions and listen carefully for answers; there are no voices to hear now. Late bloomer that my parents always said I was, I have taken almost a lifetime to wonder about some basic pieces of information about my father and where and how he grew up.
This Photo-Album has been a catalyst to formulate some questions and surmise answers. To search for all is lost to a past not, I believe, recorded elsewhere.
The sins of the father are visited upon his son in my case. I am mum about revealing personal details and sharing photos of my life. I too have rationalizations about the whys of this self-effacing, but nothing to do with Chinese Exclusion acts. I doubt my so-called motivations would match my father's, whatever his were. However, I suspect our reasons are related.
To make matters a bit more right at this late date, I leave words and photos to others dear, this sacred album being a meager bequest that I have not shared as it should have been long ago. In the end and finally, we treasure memories and some important snippets from the lives of those we would know better. Mostly these come down to words and images.
There will be mysteries in trying to discover who someone was after they begin the next big adventure. My lesser me tells me that any mysteries or questions will hang for anyone about anybody after they've left, just as they do for me in regard to my father. However, in my sunset years, I would still like to understand my father, and myself, and his Chinese connection a bit better. This album has afforded me a beginning and some precious insights.
If someone else in the family is interested in this same subject, I can share Dad's album in addition to a little of what I have found out specifically by and through carefully considering the photos he included in it. Perhaps I can break the chain of father to son to son in these small ways, sharing pictures and these few words.
So I convey something very important to my father. It is indeed my Dad's personal Shanghai Photo-Album up to approximately the time he attended Stanford University in the 30s. (There are a couple of unexplained later inclusions.) It is certainly not all the pictures he took or collected given his share of the genetics from the family Kodak business in Shanghai, and the many he collected in college and took afterwards. We can consider this album a snapshot from a larger canon with a focus on his family and upbringing.
Section One is the collection of photos in order in the album as I have them as of this date.
Section Two comprises the photos I removed over ten years ago in an effort to make a family collection showing each and to all what I had of family people pictures.
Section Three are a few photos and an artifact which go with this album. It is my belief that one can piece together a little of a life's narrative. Our words and what we focus our camera lens on are as we would, or could, have others see us. It is our task to examine these carefully, if curious. This section rounds out what probably was kept with the album when I received it.
I submit Des Mactavish's Photo-Album, The Early Years, for your eyes showing how his treasured photos might indeed reflect the person I would know.
Briefly, I separated out the people pictures from my Dad's album, let ten or so years lapse, and now am looking at all divided by what I took out and what is left in corner tabs or loose-leaf in the album. Although even in the task of separation years ago, I was not observant enough, an effect took hold: I saw my Dad in what was left, saw him as regards what drew his attention in the early years and how that mapped into the person I knew growing up. His photo choices to preserve other than the people he took pictures of, speaks of lifelong interests and occupation. And altogether, there is a kind of summary of who my Dad was, and is for me.
First, however, there is a picture of me and my Dad probably at Glenbrook, Lake Tahoe, Nevada. The album began its life in China--I believe this based on what? It doesn't matter, but this picture of me and Dad is much later than all the rest. It is the last photo in time that the album contains beginning with his childhood. There are one or two photos that date from his Stanford University days, one with car and one of an institutional-looking building that seems in the style of the Stanford campus as I remember it, but I have no documentation to prove one way or the other. There are several photos from Dad's stint in the Navy at Dartmouth during World War II. What Dad was doing at Dartmouth I don't know for sure. I believe someone said he was studying photography, perhaps training films.
As to cars, Stanford, buddies, Lake Tahoe and boats, tennis and clubs, a sense of patriotism for America, antiques and curiosities, art and beauty, paper and printing, architecture (including land to be developed and buildings realized), dogs, his cousins, photos/photography--all these are themes from a life. His devotion to his mother was well known also, thus so many of her posing at the side or in the background. Each of these themes was important to Dad and figured in our lives when I was growing up.
I have included are two color pictures of models from when Dad (and Mom (Jean Winifred Ingalls Mactavish, 1917-1995?)) lived in Hawaii. He spent approximately two years there and gave professional photography a try.
There is a damaged photo wrapper from the photography studio of Ah Fong. This studio took wedding photos and portraits, as well as ones of historical interest today. I have included copies of matted photos of my father's father and his wedding to my grandmother, Granny, taken by the Ah Fong studio. Stands to reason--that his biological father and the marriage of his mother were important photos for Dad.
There is a story here. Dad's biological father was William "Rex" Murphy, actor(?). (I am still trying to sort out this history, or intrigue . . . more if I discover Truth.) Another story is that my father never knew his father, although he had at least one opportunity in British Columbia. About that another time.
(Side note. The wrapper has an address printed on it. This address is different from that listed elsewhere on the internet for the famous photographer and his Shanghai studio (819 Nanking Road). Minor historical detail/mystery for others to sort out, or not.)
Finally, the last images include detailed images from the album cover. I thought them interesting, and the writing on one may be of some interest to authenticate the album itself, what volcano is depicted, and so forth. It is said the writing is probably Japanese, and the volcano in my view is an artist's rendering of Mt. Fuji. Did Dad spend time in Japan? Some pictures and postcards might tell. His sea commutes to and from Hawaii and the US might give a clue. Did he stop off in Japan on his way somewhere? Again, he never mentioned ever being in Japan--to me.
Well, mysteries and questions to follow down rabbit holes or just let them rest in peace, and in silence, for we cannot have all the answers we wish even in this lifetime. Or we can, if we find that what we have suffices, or must suffice.
John Kevin Mactavish
May 10, 2020
Revised June 12, 2021 and 21 January 2024
Petrovice I, Kutna Hora District
Czech Republic