A short biography of Genevieve BAGLIN, prepared by her nephews Jean-Jacques and Jean Louis Lecoeur.
Genevieve Pauline Baglin was born on July 18, 1904 in Colombes, a suburb of Paris in France. Her parents had returned there from Russia.
Her first two years were spent in France, before the family moved to Durham in England in 1906. They moved to Clay Cross in 1907, spent 1907 to 1911 in Chesterfield, then moved to Sheffield. While in England she and her sister Helen attended a school run by nuns.
A photo of Genevieve with her mother and sisters, taken in Sheffield:
In 1920, her mother Senora left her husband: she could not stand his bad temper or his stinginess any more. Mother, sons and daughters returned to Paris, with Genevieve aged 16 years old and speaking French with a charming accent.
They lived in their house La Garenne Colombes. Senora strived to continue to offer his daughters the quality education they received in England, and enrolled them in Sainte Genevieve Institution in Asnieres.
However their father cut funding.
Genevieve, like her sisters, had only learned watercolor and piano.
But she found work in Haute Couture, training in sewing on the job. She mastered all aspects, including drawing, for which she had a natural gift like all the family. She found work in various fashion houses of Paris as a saleswoman speaking English.
Then came the 1929 crash, and for some time she was a saleswoman in one of the first "Prisunic" (cheap chain stores) which opened in Paris.
In the 1920s, she was a young girl very lively, very happy, very warm.
Brunette with dark brown eyes, she was soon surrounded by boys, especially students, particularly Asians coming to France to complete their education in the Parisian faculties, Montparnasse Boulevard and University City. At that time, after the carnage of the Great War, there was a shortage of young men in France. However it was a time when foreigners moved to Paris, attracted by the atmosphere of the Roaring Twenties.
Genevieve met one of these foreigners, Yoc Ma. He was a salesman, selling delicate embroideries made in China by orphans gathered by nuns.
She was tired of sewing wedding dresses for her friends and was persuaded by Yoc Ma to follow him in Hong Kong. In 1936 she embarked on the ship "Champollion" for the five week voyage to Hong Kong. There she earned her living as a seamstress and opened a French fashion house. Her letters to her French nephews arrived bearing exotic stamps with images of British sovereigns.
In 1937, she gave Yoc Ma a pretty little daughter: Marie Anne Victoria.
War came to Hong Kong, and it was invaded by Japanese troops. As a French citizen, she was not considered an enemy of Japan, and so was not interned. However, she was asked to record propaganda messages for the Japanese radio to broadcast to French Indochina. (We think she could not say "no" to the Japanese…, but we don't have any evidence.)
In 1947, she had lived in Hong Kong for thirteen years. By then she had separated from Yoc Ma, and decided to return to France. She arrived one morning on the Champollion with Mary Anne ("Fifi"), and they lived temporarily with her mother in the street of Haras in La Garenne.
But her mother's house was small, and already crowded with her sister Sonia and Sonia's two sons. Post-war France was a difficult place to live, and life seemed very restricted after the bustle of the English colony. So she packed her bags again to return to Hong Kong with Fifi.
Genevieve and Fifi visited Paris again in 1954, but it was just a visit and they continued living in Hong Kong.
During these years, Genevieve and her siblings were involved in the disastrous events of the legacy of her father. This legacy long hoped for, but never paid, caused many quarrels and disputes between them.
In happier news, Genevieve met Harry Maddison in Hong Kong. He was an Englishman and a Captain in the British Merchant Navy. In the 1970s, with Fifi already married, Genevieve married Harry and shortly after they moved to Gibraltar to live. Genevieve continued sewing, while Harry sailed.
When Harry retired, they moved to Newcastle in northern England. She traveled a bit, visiting her sisters in France and her daughter in the USA. Speaking French with her English accent, and with a voice a little broken by smoking, she was now a charming old lady - a little eccentric, back arched by the many nights spent curved over her needlework. She declared the Newcastle weather was terrible.
Genevieve died on 12 August 1982 of liver cancer.