ON FEB 15, 1942, four days after Lim Bo Seng fled, Singapore fell to the Japanese.
For a prosperous businessman who was meticulous in everything he did and devoted to his family, it might seem surprising that Lim Bo Seng did not arrange for his family to be evacuated.
An entry in his diary, dated Feb 11, 1942, shows that although he knew it might be best to get his wife and children out of Singapore, he felt that as the leader of the resistance, he could not think only of his family.
He wrote: "A steamer was leaving for India in the afternoon but only 50 persons could be accommodated ...As this number was insufficient for all my co-helpers and our families, and not wanting to be accused of selfishness or partiality, I decided not to avail ourselves of this opportunity."
So the family stuck out the war years here. When a neighbour's house was shelled, the family moved from Palm Grove Avenue into the Telok Ayer factory because it was safer.
"Later we shifted into Tan Tock Seng Hospital staff quarters with my mother's cousin who was a doctor, but soon shifted again for safety to St John's Island," says Mrs Leow.
"We didn't last there long either because there was no drinking water.
"The journey back was terrifying as we had to travel by a launch crawling with Jap soldiers and they had been told to look out for a particular woman with her seven children.
"My mother kept praying so hard and trying to behave normal - it was a sheer miracle we didn't get caught."
During the Japanese Occupation, Mrs Lim Bo Seng kept her family together.
"My mother was forced to sell her jewellery, yet she never let us know what she was going through. She tried to give us a very normal family life," says Mrs Leow.
Friends of her father would occasionally bring a sack of rice or a whole pig to the house, so there was enough to eat.
Her mother held on to an unshakeble belief that Lim Bo Seng would return alive, partly because of an incident which had occurred at the beginning of the war.
He had been walking down a Singapore street one day when an Indian stranger stopped him and told him that the war would make him famous and he would live to know his fame.
He told his wife what the man had said, and it was something she remembered during the Occupation years when there had been no news of him.
The war did indeed make him a hero and he knew at the time of his death that he was revered as a staunch nationalist, but he never came home.
Mrs Leow remembers that it was some time in 1945, after the war, when the family found out that he had been killed. At first, her mother was excited when one of Lim Bo Seng's friends sent word that he had news about her husband.
But she realised the truth when a party of men approached the house and it included the Anglican priest who was the principal of St Andrew's School, her sons' school.
"Mama was in utter shock and pain. For so long she had cherished the thought that Papa was alive," says Woon Geok.
The young widow, only 36 then, had to travel to Batu Gajah with her eldest son to bring back her husband's remains.
Some time later Lim Bo Seng's wartime diary was sent to the family by the British. It contained mostly details of his training in India, with some personal reflections too.
More poignant and revealing was a farewell letter he wrote to his wife while in jail, in case he died.
In it, he described how he went to India, was inducted into the British Intelligence and trained for an infiltration mission into Malaya.
He volunteered for the mission when he saw that his background and experience would be useful.
"I fully realised the risks involved, but once the job was started, it must be pushed to a successful end," he wrote.
"My duty and my honour would not permit me to look back. Every day tens of thousands are dying for their countries."
He also knew what risking his life might mean for his young family in Singapore. He told his wife: "It is very painful for me to put the whole burden on your shoulders, but I am confident you are capable of bearing it and bearing it well.
"If there is a God in Heaven, there should be a drop of dew for each blade of grass. Who am I to doubt his existence?"
His parting words: "You must not grieve for me. On the other hand you should take pride in my sacrifice and devote yourself to the upbringing of the children.
"Tell them what has happened to me and direct them along my footsteps."
He said that it had been his hope to send his children to university, and that "it is most important that they should divide their time between English and Chinese".
"What a pity I could not live to realise my dreams. But I have no doubts you will do your best for them."
In the years after the war, his widow devoted herself to carrying out those wishes. Her daughters were educated at Raffles Girls' School and all went on to become trained teachers.
Her four sons went to St Andrew's before going to university in Australia, graduating in engineering, medicine, economics and accountancy.
"We all had to learn Mandarin and English," says Mrs Leow.
"Mama always held up our father as an example, especially to the boys. She had to be extra strict with them as she felt they had to carry on Papa's legacy."
Mrs Lim Bo Seng died in 1979 at the age of 70 after a long battle with liver cancer, an illness she bore with the same stoicism she had when coping with her single parenthood.
"She never once complained or railed against her fate," says her daughter.
"It was only after I married and had my own children that I realised what a tremendous strain it must have been on her to bring up all seven of us all alone, especially in those days."
So while Papa was the celebrated hero, Mama in her own way became a heroine within the Lim family.
First published in The Straits TImes, Feb 16, 1992
Next: The life of Lim Bo Seng
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