Dorothy FOX (née CLARE) [c.1908-1995]

Submitted by Admin on Sat, 09/02/2023 - 15:05
Names
Given
Dorothy
Family
Fox
Maiden
Clare
Sex
Female
Status
Deceased
Born
Date
(Day, Month, & Year are approximate.)
Birthplace (town, state)
Yokohama
Birthplace (country)
Japan
Died
Date
(Day & Month are approximate.)
Died in (town, state)
Vancouver
Died in (country)
Canada

Mentioned in the 1942 list of Civilian Internees:

Fox Mrs D 34 Housewife

The Deacons Archive at HKU has an entry showing  that her husband was in the HKVDC, and was killed in action:

21/93 G E Fox dec'd No 399 of 1947 In the Supreme Court of Hongkong Probate Jurisdiction in the goods of George Edmond Fox, assistant manager, War Supplies Board, deceased: Certified copy of Letters of Administration sealed. 1947 May 13
       
    Power of Attorney In Estate of G E Fox deceased, killed in action serving in Hong Kong Volunteer Defence Corps, by Dorothy Fox, widow, to M H Turner, H J Armstrong and R A Wadeson, with envelope. 1947 Jan 6

Tags

Connections: This person is ...
Child of
Alice CLARE [c.1876-????]

Photos that show this Person

Comments

Responding to an item in New on Gwulo 2023 week 35:

I am researching some papers of the late Pauline Sclater nee Pemble, who was held as a child in Stanley Internment Camp.

One of the signatures on one paper is that of Dorothy Fox.

Thanks to the information about her husband serving in the HKVDF, I was able to follow a line of enquiry which led me to conclude, with reasonable confidence, as follows:

I believe Dorothy was a stenographer born c 1908 & probably the widow of George Edmond Fox, who was killed in the fighting on 22/12/1941. 
There are records:

A marriage in Kobe on 16/6/1935 of George Edmund (sic) Fox & Dorothy (middle name Josephine according to a US newspaper) Clare.

George E Fox b Yokohama 1901-05.

Dorothy Clare b Yokohama 1906-10.

I suspect both bride and groom were from marriages of British men to Japanese women:

Henry C Clare (mariner?) b 1856 London m Gajima Fumi / Fume Yajima, m Yokohama between 1901-1905.

Eugene Charles William Emil Fox ( a merchant) b. 1861 Camberwell, London in name Fuchs, (presumed son of Edmond Fuchs / Fox, m unknown woman but presumed Taki Miyazawa; m Yokohama 1891-95. I note Eugene died in 1925.

It would appear then that the couple marrying in Kobe came from similar backgrounds & unfortunately soon found themselves caught up in the war at Hong Kong. If Dorothy was half Japanese & spoke the language as I suspect, internment by the Japanese may have been particularly difficult for her.

Postwar I believe Dorothy spent time in a civilian transit camp in Scotland before departing Southampton for Hong Kong on 4/3/1947, occupation given as stenographer. Thereafter her fate remains unknown to me.
 

Thanks to information from Ron Fox, a son of Dorothy Fox's brother-in-law, I am now able to add that Dorothy died in Spring 1995, in Vancouver, Canada. Best friends Dorothy Clare and  Rose Down, had married brothers George and Charles Fox in Kobe. All had British fathers and Japanese mothers.
Dorothy was in Stanley Internment Camp with her Japanese mother "Alice" Clare.
She didn't learn of her husband's death until after the war; she and her mother both went to a transit camp in Scotland before returning to Hong Kong. 
Charles Fox and family had been in Canada during the war (Charles served in the RCN) but afterwards moved to Japan for Charles' work. Dorothy followed them to live (and work) near Tokyo, with her mother. 
Charles and his family returned to Canada c1960, and, within a few years, following the death of her mother, Dorothy joined them, living nearby in Vancouver, and was very much a "second mother" to Charles' son Ron.