Footsteps

In January of 1959, my grandparents were in Japan, on a work trip for my grandfather’s work. It was not their first trip there, though it was their last. My grandfather, Russell Richardson, was there as a representative of Tidewater Oil, to help rebuild their interest in several refineries that had been firebombed during the last sorties before the end of the war.

From an early age, I loved to sit next to my grandmother and listen to her stories (she also taught me to read during one of those sessions). One of her favorite stories was about the time she went to Japan to christen a ship. She would tell the story of how she had to chop a silk cord with a silver axe, and how she was so nervous. And then she would call my grandfather to get the axe out of the closet (she had hip dysplasia and walked only with great effort), and she would show it to me in its presentation box.

In 2019, my husband and I had the opportunity to travel to Japan, and the itinerary, dictated by his boss, would take us on a nearly identical route to that of my grandparents. I am fortunate to have both my grandfather's journal (a rather dry listing of destinations, timing, and the weather. We also have my grandmother's chatty letters home to her daughter (my mother). For a contemporary view, we also have my daily posts on social media. 

Their first destination in Asia, like ours, was Tokyo. We took a direct flight to Narita Airport: my grandparents spent a week on a steamer, crossing the date line on New Year's eve. Ironically, they were flown from Tokyo to points west, while we took advantage of the high-speed rail that has since been built. The other big difference was the weather--they were there in the cold of winter (January), and we arrived at the end of July, just in time for oppressive heat and humidity. They stayed several weeks ensconced  in a suite in the newly expanded Imperial Hotel (built by Frank Lloyd Wright); we found a reasonably priced hotel with air conditioning and relative peace in Shinagawa and headed east as soon as our jet lag allowed. 

We both stopped in Kyoto, where Grandfather's photos of the temples are black and white and deserted, in contrast to the vivid colors and hordes of tourists in our phone's pictures. His pictures show the odd car, and loads of people pulling handcarts or on foot. Today those thoroughfares are jammed with small boxy cars and busses. 

Our paths overlapped in Kurashiki. Russell writes:

“Okayama, Ar 5:31 pm Brass band to greet us. 9:30 go with Gov Miki in his car (car equipped with phone and short wave radio. Motorcycle escort) to Mimushima refinery site – about 40 min. Cold but clear. Take motor boat ride around site. Two barges dredging. Left site @ 11:30 stopped to inspect 7 or 8 dormitories purchased from prefecture. At Kurashiki visited the Ohara Art Museum and had a bit of lunch – Japanese style nearby.”

We followed his footsteps through the old town of Kurashiki, one of the few spared by the bombers. We visited the Ohara Art Museum and gardens, and saw the same paintings he did—and many more, as the collection has grown considerably since 1959. An aerial view of the refinery today shows it is still active, but we demurred adding it to our itinerary. Our lunch was Japanese, a tasty vegan curry, served in a beautifully restored house. And we started our day not with a brass band, but by climbing the hill to a shrine that overlooks the whole.

Our paths also crossed in Fukuoka and Nagasaki, the first on the far west coast, with spectacular views, the latter all too well known. Grandmother writes to her daughter: 

“We stayed all night in Fukuoka (it’s the size of Oakland) and left by train for Nagasaki the next morning. We were met there by a delegation & photographers & a little Japanese girl presented me with a big bouquet of chrysanthemums & tulips – red & yellow“

Its state makes us think that the train station does not appear to have changed a great deal since 1959, and there is an "Octoberfest" celebration in the station in full swing when we arrive, complete with bratwurst and beer--in July. 

There is a reason for our trips to Nagasaki. During his 37-year career working for Tidewater Oil (later Associated Oil), Russell worked his way up from a lowly bookkeeper to Vice President of the company. Tidewater partnered with Mitsubishi (the Japanese government would not allow foreign companies to own business outright) in building refineries in Japan in the 1930s, and in rebuilding in the aftermath of World War II. 

In recognition of his role, my grandmother Jessie was given the honor of sponsoring the tanker SS Virginia Getty in a January 1959 christening at the Mitsubishi shipyards in Nagasaki. Jessie continues: 

“We left the hotel at 10 next a.m. & drove to the ship yard – Boy, was I nervous. It was icy cold, windy & it rained except during the actual ceremony. Then the heavens opened up & it poured. When I chopped the cord, the balloon on the bow of the ship was opened up & confetti & pigeons flew out, & the Virginia Getty slid into the water.”

When I first heard we would travel to Japan, I was eager to go to Nagasaki, to the place of her story. I was not disappointed. In spite of the language barrier, we managed to reserve a tour and visit to the old Mitsubishi pattern shop, which houses the shipyard's museum. Once there, we had a private guide, since we were the only visitors who didn’t speak Japanese.

When we told our story to our guide, she disappeared for a few minutes and emerged with her arms full of albums of the building and christening of the Virginia Getty from their archives. She was also able to show us where in the shipyard she was launched, and we could share grandmother’s words and a photo of the hatchet used to launch her. I am deeply appreciative of her efforts, and found myself quite moved by seeing images of my grandparents again. 

The silver hatchet that launched a ship

Lives of Service

The Baltimore Sun, published March 30, 2013 | By Frederick N. Rasmussen

Dr. Lorenz E. and Anastasia U. Zimmerman

Ophthalmic pathologist and nurse had met during service in Army 

Dr. Lorenz E. Zimmerman, the founder of modern ophthalmic pathology, who spent his nearly 60-year career studying diseases of the eye, died March 16 of complications from an infection at the Blakehurst retirement community in Towson. He was 92. 

His wife of 53 years, Anastasia U. Zimmerman, a registered nurse who had served as a major with the Army Nurse Corps, died Tuesday of congestive heart failure, also at Blakehurst. She was 89.

"Without a doubt, Dr. Zimmerman was the most influential eye pathologist in the last 150 years. He was known worldwide and he trained all of the world's leading eye pathologists of the 20th century," said Dr. Morton F. Goldberg, who was director of the Wilmer Eye Institute at Johns Hopkins Hospital from 1989 until 2003.

"He was a charismatic and brilliant lecturer, which is a mark of erudition and real brilliance," said Dr. Goldberg. "He was a fine person with impeccable ethics, and he also had inherent leadership traits. He had been a leader in our field for more than 50 years."

Lorenz Eugene Zimmerman, the son of a German immigrant father and an immigrant mother from Switzerland, was born and raised in Washington, graduating in 1938 from Central High School. "They owned the Regent Pastry Shop in Washington, and he said he went into medicine because he didn't want to have to work as hard as his parents," said a daughter, Dr. Mary Louise "Lou" Collins, a Homeland resident, who is director of pediatric ophthalmology and resident education at Greater Baltimore Medical Center .

Dr. Zimmerman earned his bachelor's degree in 1943 and his medical degree in 1945, both from George Washington University. 

He served in the Army from 1944 to 1954, attaining the rank of lieutenant colonel.

He served an internship at the old Gallinger Municipal Hospital in Washington from 1945 to 1946 and completed a general pathology residency at Walter Reed Army Medical Center from 1947 to 1950. 

"The start of the Korean War coincided with the end of his residency, and he became the pathologist in charge of a field hospital pathology laboratory where he served in Korea until 1952," said Dr. Collins.

While in Korea, Dr. Zimmerman was commanding officer of the 8217th Mobile Medical Laboratory. His decorations included the Bronze Star and Legion of Merit.

The Korean War was the backdrop for the beginning of a friendship that later blossomed into a marriage. The future Mrs. Zimmerman had enlisted in the Army Nurse Corps in 1945 and served in Japan during the occupation after the end of World War II.

"My parents first met in a mobile Army hospital in Korea," said Dr. Collins. "They did not see each other again for seven or eight years until they were both stationed at Walter Reed. They married in 1959."

In 1952, Dr. Zimmerman began his career at the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology at Walter Reed Army Medical Center. He remained there for the next 52 years, and chaired the department of ophthalmic pathology from 1954 to 1983. He was chairman emeritus at his death.

"This was the turning point in his career, although he had not had specific training in pathology of the eye and ocular adnexa," said Dr. Collins.

Dr. Zimmerman's role was not treating patients but rather studying eye tissue and cells that may lead to eye disease. He made important contributions to the understanding of the causes of leukocoria, or white pupil, and ocular melanoma.

"He studied a huge volume of tissue samples that came from eye surgeons all over the world. He brought exceptional order out of chaos," said Dr. Goldberg.

Dr. Zimmerman was not only a prolific researcher but also an indefatigable writer of scientific articles. During his career, he wrote more than 370 articles in peer-reviewed journals, "many of which are landmark contributions," said Dr. Collins.

He also lectured widely. "Every talk he gave he was just spectacular," said Dr. C. Pat Wilkinson, chairman of the department of ophthalmology at GBMC. "I knew him from my residency days and he was one of those figures you rarely come across in life."

He was a professor of pathology and ophthalmology at Georgetown University from 1983 to 1986 and was a consultant in pathology from 1976 to 1999 at Washington Hospital Center.

Dr. Zimmerman was also a professor of ophthalmology and pathology at the Johns Hopkins Medical School.

He retired in 2002.

"He was a man of no pretensions. He was known as 'Zim,'" said Dr. Goldberg. "He loved teaching and doing original research and was exceptional at both."

"Zim does leave a lasting legacy," said Dr. Wilkinson. "He had a wonderful personality. He was an elegant, charming and enthusiastic guy that everyone just adored. We will all miss him."

The couple had lived in Kensington for many years before moving to Blakehurst 11 years ago. Dr. Zimmerman liked spending time at a second home at Sherwood Forest.

Anastasia and Lorenz

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[Editor's note: The Zimmermann and Hellstern families both came from the town of Betra, and intermarried frequently: the most direct pairing is Magdalena Zimmermann, who married Alfred Hellstern senior. Her brother was Lorenz's father, the immigrant who came from serving in the kitchens of a castle to owning a bakery in Washington, DC.]

Where are you taking us?

We've driven past it a hundred times on our way to pick up our daily bread. In the shadow of the baroque Basilica in Weissenau, it pokes out onto the sidewalk next to tree-lined grounds of the Heilanstalt--literally "healing place"--or sanatorium. 

But the grey bus didn't mean anything to us until we read the plaque nearby:

"The so-called “Euthanasia-Action” (Aktion T 4) of the National Socialists claimed about 200,000 mentally ill victims during World War II. They were considered 'not worthy of living.' At least 90,000 patients died of hunger or inadequate nourishment, or were murdered with drugs in state-run sanatoriums. More than 70,000 men, women, and children were murdered in gas chambers during the secret operation 'T4' in 1940/41. The mass murder was centrally organized at Tiergartenstraße 4 in Berlin - thus the abbreviation 'T4.' Grafeneck, Brandenburg, Bernburg, Hartheim (near Linz), Sonnenstein, and Hadamar were the towns where the murders took place. Some of the staff of these killing institutions later worked in extermination camps such as Auschwitz, Treblinka, Sobibor, and Belzec. There is hardly a region in Germany that was not affected by this organized mass murder. Mentally and physically handicapped people were the first victims of a systematic, well-organized annihilation plan directed against the ill and those regarded as “racially inferior” by the Nazi regime. The 'Monument of the Grey Busses' serves as a reminder of the transports of the patients to their deaths. Artists Horst Hoheisel and Andreas Knitz designed the monument for the Weißenau Psychiatric Centre near Ravensburg in 2006. A bus based on the same model as the one that drove from the hospitals to the death centres in the years 1940 and 1941, in its original size and concrete form, commemorates the mass murder. 'Where are you taking us?' – The question of one of the patients -- is inscribed on the monument." 

Years before, after taking in the Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C., we had entered the family surname in the database. One name popped: Lorenz Hellstern--in Weißenau. 

Lorenz was born August 26, 1878, in the village of Betra, the tenth and last child of Ambrose and Maria (née Maier) Hellstern. He was baptized at 3 days of age in the Catholic church there. Both his parents died before they turned 50; he had seven living siblings, so presumably the family cared for him. The next record found for him is in 1939, in the German Minority Census: he is a patient in the Heilanstalt Weissenau. The last mention of Lorenz is found is March 2, 1940 in a list of NS euthanasia victims in Grafenek. He was 62.

On Armistice Day

by Madge R. Walsh, Nov. 11, 2008

My father, my brother, and my husband all were veterans of the US Navy.

Ensign Russell D Richardson

My father volunteered in World War I, and was sent to Mare Island Naval Station on San Francisco Bay, where the USS Gridley (a four-stack destroyer) was being built. As a “landsman,” he was to be trained as an electrician, but the class was full so there was a long wait until the next class. Half a dozen of these “landsmen” got bored with nothing to do, so they hired tutors and studied to get their commissions as officers – and did. (It was a relief not to have to sleep in a hammock anymore!). My father was assigned to the Gridley as an ensign; during the builder’s trial runs, it got pretty rough – green water over the bow at 35 knots – but my father didn’t get seasick, and never did (I wish I could say the same for myself, but I can’t.). The day the Gridley sailed out of San Francisco Bay was the day the Armistice was signed.

One of the highlights of that first voyage was the passage through the Panama Canal, recently built; another was that the Gridley was one of the ships stationed at intervals across the Atlantic to report on the flight of the four Navy seaplanes across the Atlantic, and if necessary, rescue any that didn’t make it. The Gridley did have to rescue the pilot of one plane; another destroyer tried to tow it, but the seaplane was not built for that kind of treatment, and sank.

David C Richardson

After the war, my parents married and had my brother, who served in World War II. He was in college, Naval ROTC, and managed to graduate (University of California). He was immediately sent to New York for midshipman school at Columbia. The Navy then sent him off to the South Pacific. He had a small sailboat on San Francisco Bay, and the Navy put him on a small ship, a wooden APc originally designed for mine sweeping, etc. They had the not unpleasant duty of exploring the remote islands & atolls to check up on the presence of any Japanese (didn’t find any); but then were part of the Philippine invasion. At Luzon, his little ship was attacked by a kamikaze, but another US ship shot it down, so they were not damaged. From there, they faced the imminence of invading Japan; but were “saved” from that by the atomic bomb, and the subsequent Japanese surrender. People decry the use of atomic weapons, but at least in this case, my family is grateful that the invasion did not take place, and my brother was not killed.

After his tour of duty was done, my brother was assigned as captain of an oceangoing tug launched in Portland, Oregon; he was to take it to Honolulu. It had a small crew, only 2 officers – my brother and a navigator. The poor navigator was seasick all the way to San Francisco, so my brother did the navigation. As they approach the pilot boat at the entrance to San Francisco Bay, the fog lifted – my brother said if he kept on going, it would’ve run right into it. Since he’d sailed the San Francisco Bay and knew it well, he was darned if he take on a pilot, and took the tug into the bay himself. After delivering the tug at Pearl Harbor, he was released from the Navy. He continued to sail in small (and larger) boats, even in the Midwest, whenever he could find a lake to sail on.

Bert T. Walsh

My husband was also in the Navy, during the Korean “conflict.” He served on an LCd; once he showed me a photo of the hold – the “dock” – loaded with wounded men on stretchers, being evacuated. Before that, growing up in San Francisco, he had been a Sea Scout, and made lifelong friends – I still have a photo of their sailboat, the “Corsair,” and its “pirate” flag is brought out at every reunion. He attended the Maritime Academy at Vallejo, now part of the University of California system. He sailed on oil tankers and also for Matson, to Honolulu. I recall the time after we were married and had our son, we were walking along San Francisco’s Embarcadero, and he told our little boy how to get on a board a liner as a stowaway! But he had taken advantage of the G.I. bill, went to college and eventually became a licensed mechanical engineer. For a man who really didn’t enjoy traveling, his work took us to quite a few places, in the US and Canada. After we “retired” to Northern California, he even had a small sailboat on Whiskeytown Lake. Our son has missed our latest embroilment (now too old). I’m hoping my grandsons – and their contemporaries – never again have to face such situations.

On Memorial Day

By Blanche Gray (Blanche A. Botts), 1998

HAROLD RICHARDSON STREET

            Born November 18, 1908 in Deer Lodge, Montana to Bernard and Ella Richardson Street. From Deer Lodge the family moved to St. Thomas, North Dakota, then to Ely, Nevada and Huntington Park, California, where they lived until Bernard’s death. Harold lived with his family and grandparents in Oregon until his mother received a teaching position in Keewatin, Minnesota.

            Harold attended the Keewatin school. He graduated at age 15, as Valedictorian of his class. He then attended Hibbing Junior College for two years, then transferred to the University of Minnesota where he received his B.S. degree with honors. He took one year off from school and worked in the lumber camp in Michigan.

             Harold returned to the University of Minnesota Farm campus where he did all his work on his master’s degree. The subject of his master’s thesis was “Vitamin Requirements of the Trubolium Confusum.”

            It was while he was working on his Masters degree that he was working as a night orderly at the University of Minnesota Hospital, to help defray expenses. At that time I was a student nurse at the hospital, and that is where we met. Harold finished his masters work and I finished my nursing, took state boards and became a registered nurse. I worked for one year and we were married on August 23, 1933.

            Harold received a teaching scholarship at the “U” and started his work on his doctorate. His PhD thesis was “A Study of Some of the Physiological Effects of Vitamin G Deficiency.” I was able to help him a great deal with drawing of blood, lab work, feeding and caring for the dogs in the research. The most interesting study with positive results.

            In 1936 Harold completed his work on his Ph.D. and graduated. Harold applied for work at all the outstanding schools in the country and received a two-year Rockefeller scholarship at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut where he continued his vitamin G deficiency work on dogs.

            It was while he was at Yale that he had dogs down with vitamin G deficiency (black tongue in dogs, pellagra in humans) that a scientist had used nicotinic acid to treat the disease with good results. He sent for supply of nicotinic acid and treated his dogs with good results. The lab and his supervisors were so very pleased as he was the first one to duplicate this experiment.

            After Harold’s two years at Yale, he finished out a project in the Physiological Chemistry Department at Ohio State in Columbus, Ohio. In the spring, April 1939, he started a position at the Winthrop chemical company studying vitamin B. Harold and several chemists were unhappy with the director of the research department. Many of them joined the Army, which is what Harold did.

            Harold was stationed at Fort Dix and was able to come home on the train each weekend. While he was stationed there he was sent to Johns Hopkins University for further study in hematology. When he completed this work he went to Fort Jackson in Columbia, South Carolina. He located a comfortable home for us there, and Marjory, Paul and I joined him. We remained there until the middle of February when the children and I went to Fergus Falls, Minnesota to wait out the war. The first of March 1944, Harold went to England with the 74^th General Hospital.

            Harold was very depressed and felt the war would go on and on and they would never get back home.

            Harold died November 3, 1944 at Tyntesfield in England. He was buried in the National Cemetery in Cambridge. We have visited the grave. The cemetery is beautiful.