Group photo aboard s.s. Siberia Maru, 1928

Sat, 03/18/2023 - 16:50

This group photo shows Marguerite Alice Furness, born in Hamiltion, Ontario on 24 November 1906, with her mother Amy Furness-Harvey and father William John Furness. They lived in Shanghai.
Two years after this photo was taken, in 1930, Marguerite Furness married Cornelis Gerardus Riem, in Shanghai, were he worked for Nederlandsch-Indische Handelsbank. Their daughter Yuquinda, born in Shanghai in 1942, shared this photo with me.

A timetable from this period shows the following ports of call for s.s. Siberia Maru: Hong Kong, Shanghai, Nagasaki, Kobe, Yokohama, Honolulu, San Francisco.
<a href="https://www.timetableimages.com/maritime/images/nyk.htm" rel="noreferrer nofollow">www.timetableimages.com/maritime/images/nyk.htm</a&gt;
Sailings August 1926-March 1927 (issued August 1, 1926)

Which travel destination did the Furness family have? Could it have been a holiday in Japan, to celebrate Marguerite's birthday? Or perhaps a family visit in the United Kingdom via Hong Kong?

If you read this and are able to find the specific ports of call and dates for this voyage, please leave a comment.

The ship's details are the following:
<a href="http://www.theshipslist.com/ships/lines/tkk.shtml" rel="noreferrer nofollow">www.theshipslist.com/ships/lines/tkk.shtml</a&gt;
Siberia Maru, built 1901, 11,785 tons, built by Newport News Shipbuilding & Drydock Co., Newport News | ex- Siberia, 1916 purchased from Pacific Mail Steam Ship Co., Seattle and renamed Siberia Maru, 1926 to Nippon Yusen K.K.(NYK), 1930 laid up, 1934 scrapped.

When Charles Gesner van der Voort (1916-1991) started to work in Shanghai for Holland-China Trading company, in January 1939, he visited the directors of the major Dutch companies in Shanghai, including Cornelis Riem. 
From 1943 to 1945, most Netherlands residents in Shanghai were interned by the Japanese in Chapei Civil Assembly Centre, including Charles Gesner van der Voort and the Riem family.
Almost all Chapei Civil Assembly internees survived the war, as the treatment was better than in most Japanese camps during WWII. The Riem family lived in the US for a while before moving to the Netherlands, where Cornelis Riem was born. The Gesner van der Voort family lived in Hong Kong and Australia, before moving to the Netherlands.

Courtesy Riem family archives

Date picture taken
14 Nov 1918

Comments