Helen Aiko Grut

Helen Aiko Condor was born in Japan from an English Father and Japanese mother. They lived in a large property in Tokyo which had a european style house and a japanese house. Her father lived in the european style house and her mother in the Japanese style. She said her Japanese mother was very strict and formal and she prefered to spend time with her father. She told several different versions of her origins. The most likely one is that she was the daughter of Josiah Condor and a woman that he did not marry. The first 5 years of her life were spent with a poor Japanese farming family. She rememberd the hardship of those early days. Josiah and his wife had a son who died in infancy. At that point he sent for his daughter Helen and adopted her. But her step mother did not seem to have bonded to her very well.

Antother story Helen told was that her grandfather had been an official working for the Shigun and had been ordered to commit sepuku when the Shogun was deposed. Her grandmother , Aunt and mother then opened an antique shop and that is how her father met her mother, who was serving in the shop.

Helen was sent to school in France and spent holidays with her Aunt Louise Condor who taught her to paint water colours. At 16 she returned to Japan by boat and meet Commander Grut, a handsome swedish naval officer on board and they fell on love and married. She travelled with him to Siam where she had her first children, including Rolfe. Later in life they moved to Malaysia, Sweden and Denmark.

Helen was an exceptionally beautiful woman...and men found her fascinating. She was not an intellectual but could speak several languages and was very artistic and very charming. She was small and slim, despite having 6 children. During the WW2 German occupation of denmark she help smuggle several families to sweden hiding in her car as she made the trip by ferry.

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http://www.gruthansen.org/genealogy/getperson.php?personID=I0498&tr...

Hendes forældre var professor, dr. emerit. Josiah Conder og Kumé Maeba (Shimuzu). Hendes farforældre var bankbestyrer Josiah Conder og Elisabeth Joan Wood. Hun arvede fra sin far - der var arkitekt og professor ved universitetet i Tokyo og forestod opførelsen af en række regeringsbygninger o.l. i Tokyo - en internationalt kendt samling af japansk kunst fra tiden mellem det 17. århundrede og sidste halvdel af det 19. århundrede. Samlingen, der tilligemed en samling hende tilhørende østasiatisk kunstindustri rummede mere end 375 numre, solgtes i juni 1942 på auktion hos datidens betydeligste auktionsfirma V. Winkel & Magnussen; katalogen over kunstauktion no. 291 eksisterer.