Touching Lives ...He Was a Good Man

A story, that I have been a part of since World War II ended and baby boomers filled the hospital beds, has now reached closure. 

Elementary school taught me one major skill that has sustained me. My favorite part of the week was "Show and Tell" not recess.  My parents each saved memorabilia from their forty years of life's experiences. They told me stories about places, people, and items. I took in every story whether true or exaggerated. 

The memory I will never forget is standing in front of my fourth grade class at Roosevelt. I smiled and felt proud as I told a story of my daddy meeting an important doctor in Japan after World War II. One boy interrupted and bullied me with, "You mean a Jap." 

I sucked in my breath and continued, "Dr. Aoi and my father are friends. We write letters back and forth like pen pals."  I am sure Mrs. Bloomberg helped to ease the situation.  "Dr. Aoi and my dad played golf together. That is why they are still friends." 

This is the only remaining Christmas card from my dad's correspondence after WWII with Dr. Setsuro Aoi. For over a decade in the 1950's my father wrote and shared pictures of us with Dr. Aoi, whom he met after World War II. Dad was stationed in Japan after the war. My guess is that he had skills to fix things, he never met a stranger, and he played golf. 

I carried this letter in my cedar hope chest from the day I moved away from  209 H NE in 1968 to the present.  While living Hutchinson, Ks we met a couple from Japan. Yuka and I became friends. Then a few years ago this lovely Christmas card surfaced in one of my discarding/ cleaning out moods, and I decided to find out who Dr. Aoi was. Yukari willingly helped me by posting this picture with a message in search of Dr. Aoi's family on Facebook. 

We first learned that Dr. Aoi had been a doctor at the tuberculosis hospital  in Nagoya, Japan.  His niece sent this message:

メール有難うございました。アメリカのお友達がカードをまだお持ちなら写真を撮ってPCに送って貰う事は可能でしょうか？次女の方は独身で両親を看取り現在は名古屋市の施設におります。長女は90才、次女は87才になります。まだ元気なようですが父親の送ったカードを見ることが出来たら懐かしいのではないかと思います。多分PCなどは持っていないかと思いますので私宛に送って頂いたら何とかします。コロナ騒動で現在は緩和されたとはいえ私は三重県ですし直接は会えないかも知れませんが。

" Her father is a brother of Dr. Aoi who you are looking for. She said Dr. Aoi passed away in 1980 at the age of 82. He got two sons and two daughters. The eldest son passed away, the second son was in the USA and married an American woman who lived in California!! but he has already died. She said if she knew the story at least ten years ago you could have seen him. She asked two daughters about your father but they did not know any episodes about American man."  

IF.  If I had just done this research when I lived in Kansas. The great IF, but I didn't. 

In the last year Yuka and I have kept in touch with updates from Dr. Aoi's niece. As of June 2020 Dr. Setsuro's brother's daughters were still fine, ages 90 and 87. 

In a more recent email Mitsuko, Dr. Aoi's niece writes: 

"Your father's friend Dr Seturo was a very talented person. After graduating from medical school in Japan, he was studying at the University of Bern in Switzerland.

From that experience, he accompanied as an advisor to the Japanese representative of the Berlin Olympics. He became the director of the tuberculosis sanatorium during World War II, and probably met your father there after the war. 

His son, Mitsuko's father, was also a doctor. He went to North China as a medical doctor. At the end of the war he was interned in Siberia and missing forever It was a really sad story." 

Yuka writes:  No more war.

                     No more COVID-19

                    Love and peace. 

I replied, "Yuka, this is the best gift of the year. I think we can close the story and know we've done our best by history and loved ones. I thank you for your sincere help in finding this information. Hope you are both well and safe from COVID."

One last note sent by Misuko reads, "And most of Dr. Aoi's family are doctors. They are fighting COVID-19 right now." 

Letty writes: No more war.

                    No more COVID-19

                    Love and peace.

**Update January 2021:

In a box my father carried with him I recently rediscovered the Japanese fan that Dr. Aoi sent to us in the 1950's. Once again I asked my friend Yuka for help in translating the words on the fan. The best news of all the translation down the side reads: Made my Hotel Taigetsu-row in Toba-harbor. Taigetsu means waiting for the moon.  

Toba, she writes is a beautiful place to visit. Here is the website: 

Toba Harbor