The remarkable life of Tess Snare (or Toots and the Baron)

[Effie]

The young Japanese Baron, Ichijo Sanemoto…met Tess when he was studying in the University of Birmingham in London. The Baron was captivated by the petite and pretty Tess who was only 156cm tall. The Baron reportedly said, “I liked Tess’s red hair”.
Translation of Tess’s 1982 obituary in the Hokubei Mainchini newspaper.


The Pearl Shirt Stud

Tess has an only a walk on part in my family tree albeit a rather colourful one.
I came across her while researching the sad life of Dudley Alexander, a sweet if slightly dissolute young man, whose final act of kindness before shooting himself in a taxi travelling down Oxford street in 1924 was to leave a registered envelope with a porter at Moody’s nightclub saying “See that Toots gets this”.

Toots AKA Tess Snare was a dancing instructress who had known Dudley for about 6 weeks. The envelope contained a pearl shirt stud that that Dudley had promised to Tess to replace a pearl that was missing from one of her rings. I wanted to know more….

Japanese Nobility

A search of ancestry revealed just 2 records - a Tess Snare born 1899 who travelled to Japan in the mid 1920s & a marriage between Tess Snare and Sanemoto Ichijo in St Marylebone Registry Office in 1923. Google revealed that Sanemoto was in fact Baron Ichijo, a Japanese noble.

Salient Facts

Still more intrigued I ordered the wedding certificate and resumed the search - only to discover that Tess had been laying false trails and most of the information given on her wedding certificate was incorrect.

But determined investigation and help from the good people of this forum prevailed and so - here is the amazing story of ……..

Sarah Lypowsky Myers

Sarah was born in no 147 Rothschilds Buildings, Flower & Deane Street, Spitalfields on 28th August 1890. The apartment block had been built in 1887 to provide reasonably priced, decent living quarters for the “respectable working class”. The flats were rather cramped with shared bathrooms and kitchens but they were infinitely better than the slums which surrounded them and which had housed a number of the victims of the the 1888 Jack the Ripper murders.

In the early years of the buildings history the inhabitants were mainly poor Jewish Eastern European immigrants like Sarah’s father , Abraham Lypowski Myers , a tailor who had recently arrived from Russia, and her mother Polly Willks, the daughter of a Polish Hawker.

The Myers family

By 1895 the family had moved to Soho an area full of tailors workshops and by 1901 Sarah had acquired 3 sisters and a brother and Abraham could describe himself on the census as an employer - though in actual fact he seems to have been running and living and working in a sweat shop. Six families totalling 49 people were crammed into the “upper parts” of 2 adjoining buildings- nearly all of those of working age were tailors who were working at home.

Things had improved by 1909 - Abraham was no longer an employer but the family had a house to themselves in Woodstock Road, Hammersmith.


Sarah Schnare

After leaving school at 14 Sarah worked as a tailoress in the family business until her marriage to Francis Jacob Schnare, a motor mechanic, on February 7th 1909 when she was 18. About 2 1/2 months later on April 20th their daughter Rose was born.

It was not a happy marriage and in early 1920 Sarah petitioned for divorce on the grounds of adultery and cruelty

Sarah and Francis had separated by June 1921, and although Sarah described him as head of the household on that month’s census he was actually lodging elsewhere. Sarah listed herself as Tootsie Snare Perhaps she had already begun work as a dancing instructress.


The decree absolut was issued on 12th Feb 1922- but Sarah had little time to celebrate as on 3rd June that year poor Rose died of the heart disease she had suffered from for 7 years. The death certificate described Francis as “ a soldier - disceased” - Sarah was rewriting her past.

Eight days before her 33rd birthday Sarah Snare nee Sarah Lypowski Meyers married Sanemoto Ichijo in the guise of: Tess Snare, aged 25, spinster and daughter of Jacob Snare.
The only entirely correct piece of information she gave to the Registrar was her address - the same as had been listed in her divorce petition and in the 1921 census return.
The reason for all this subterfuge was most likely to hide her background from Sanemoto’s family

Baron Sanemoto Ichijo

Baron Sanemoto Ichijo was a member of one of the five most noble families in Japan. His father Saneteru Ichijo was the 25th head of the illustrious Ichijo family and Sanemoto had been made a Baron in his own right when he was about 1 year old.

He had arrived in the uk in 1920 to study economics at Birmingham University. We can only guess how he met Tess (in Moody’s nightclub?) or why she was working as dancing instructress in April 1924, 8 months after their wedding but we do know that in February 1926 the couple returned to the uk after a disastrous visit to Japan to meet the Ichijo family.

Star crossed lovers

According to Tess’ obituary, the family strongly disapproved of the marriage - Sanemoto was ordered to the family estate and Tess was bundled off to the Imperial Hotel - there was nothing for it but to return to England - but trouble was brewing here too.

Tess was under the threat of a criminal charge for refusing to report to the local police station as an Alien resident which she had officially become since marrying a non British National .She had also obtained and travelled on a British passport under her “maiden name”
The Japanese Community in Prewar Britain by keiko Itoh has a little section all about the affair. Apparently, Sanemoto went to the Japanese consulate in London and asked for help - strings were pulled and the case was dropped but the incident brought their marriage to the attention of the Japanese government.

As a Peer, Sanemoto was obliged to gain permission from the Ministry of Palace Affairs before marrying. The chances of this being granted for a marriage to a foreigner were practically non existent and this is probably why Sanemoto had decided to present them with a fait accompli.

The consular general now referred the matter to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs who ruled that if the marriage was legal in England it would have to be recognised. The palace was forced to accept this but contacted the consulate asking for information on Tess’s background and behaviour - the consulate simply sent them a copy of the marriage certificate.

Sun, Sea and Golf.

While all this had been going on, Tess and Sanemoto had settled in Bournemouth where the Baron took up photography and they both joined the Ferndale Golf Club where they inaugurated the Baron Ichijo and the Baroness Ichijo cups and took part in regular golf tournaments as reported in the local press.

I think they also arranged for Tess’s parents to move to the area- Abraham and Polly were here in 1939.


These happy times did not last long as sharply deteriorating relations between Japan and the Uk caused the couple to move back to Japan in 1933 where they opened the Ichijo Photographic Studio in Roppongi, Tokyo.
Now it was Tess’ nationality that caused problems and their situation became more and more difficult as Japan moved towards and into the Pacific war. Friends quoted in her obituary said that Tess never liked to talk of that time.

Mr & Mrs Ichijo

In 1947, the entire Japanese nobility except for the immediate imperial family was abolished and most of Sanemoto’s land was confiscated meaning he lost his income. Tess had to support the family and pay the medical bills for Sanemoto’s lung disease.
Tess took on a number of jobs - she worked for GHQ - the post war occupation authority, taught in an elementary school, gave English conversation classes at various companies and ran a private tutoring school at home.
Her obituary notes that sometimes times were so hard she had to sneak food from her places of work back home.

Sanemoto passed away in 1972. Three years later Tess was invited to meet Queen Elizabeth II at a ceremonial tea party during the state visit to Japan.

Tess died in 1982 at the age of 92. She was still working in the months leading up to up to her death, giving conversation lessons to the wife of the soon to be President of Sony - Norio Ohga.

That was the remarkable life of Tess Snare - you can see a picture of her that was taken by Sanemoto, here (top centre)

https://hojishinbun.hoover.org/?a=d&...g-????--------

[Olde Crone]

What an amazing story! And what an amazing piece of research.

OC

[Effie]

Originally Posted by Olde Crone

What an amazing story! And what an amazing piece of research.

OC

Thankyou I am so glad to have been able to discover her story. This forum was a great help with both research and encouragement that I was on the right track and there was a very kind person on a Japanese Geneology site who found Tess’s obituary for me.

[Janet]

How interesting! A very good read, and inspiration to keep picking away at those mysteries that seem so impossible to solve. Thanks!

[Effie]

Originally Posted by Janet

How interesting! A very good read, and inspiration to keep picking away at those mysteries that seem so impossible to solve. Thanks!

Thankyou It’s lucky that Tess used the correct address on her wedding certificate and that she had been living there at the time of the 1921 census - otherwise I don’t think I would have been able to link Tess with Sarah. There’s still things I’d like to find - like Sanemoto’s obituary - but it seems almost impossible for a non- academic to gain access to historical Japanese newspapers (and of course not reading Japanese is also a bit of a barrier)

[Mary from Italy]

You certainly have an interesting family tree!

[Phoenix]

That is an amazing story. I'm so impressed how much you have managed to uncover.

Do you think Toots actually knew the Baron before her divorce? She had a Japanese boarder with her in 1921. His first name was Shotaro and he was a clerk for Mitsui and Co. His surname looks like Raninsa, but I don't think that's correct.

[Effie]

Originally Posted by Mary from Italy

You certainly have an interesting family tree!

I think I’m lucky in that a number of the main branches have unusual surnames so it’s quite easy to find them when they’ve done something newsworthy ( or had something newsworthy happen to them)

[Effie]

Originally Posted by Phoenix

That is an amazing story. I'm so impressed how much you have managed to uncover.

Do you think Toots actually knew the Baron before her divorce? She had a Japanese boarder with her in 1921. His first name was Shotaro and he was a clerk for Mitsui and Co. His surname looks like Raninsa, but I don't think that's correct.

I did wonder about that - it seems too much of coincidence otherwise and Sanemoto was in London for the 1921 census.
By the way,a couple of days ago I got hold of his university of Birmingham exam results - he failed his first year 1922-1923 - obviously paying more attention to Tess than economics.