Resident co-authors family memoir set in pre- and post-World War II Japan

Date: 1/15/2015

LONGMEADOW – A memoir entitled “Tamiko: A Family History” chronicles the life of Tamiko Shimoyama, a 97 year-old woman living near Tokyo, Japan, who experienced tragedy and later redemption during the pre and post World War II eras.

The memoir was co-authored by Shimoyama alongside her 66-year-old daughter Masako Glushien, a town resident, who translated the book. Glushien was born and raised in Kobe City, Japan, and has been living in the Western Massachusetts since 1978.

Glushien, 66, told Reminder Publications that the short 58-page memoir developed from a manuscript compiled by her mother 20 years ago when she was living with Glushien, which consisted of 15 painstakingly written pages in Japanese. 

Lulu Publishing Services published the book on May 28, 2014. The memoir took about a year to be published after the final manuscript was submitted.

“Preoccupied with raising my children, I didn’t read it until 20 years later,” Glushien notes in the introduction of the book. “I sent a copy to my oldest brother, who was living in Japan. He typed copies from her handwritten memoir for our siblings and relatives, but when he read the chapter about Tamiko’s mother’s death, he was moved to tears and had to stop typing for a while.”

Glushien said Shimoyama was born on July 28, 1917 in Okuhata, a small village in Yamaguchi prefecture next to Hiroshima. She was the second of six children. Her mother Chujiro died suddenly of meningitis when she was 12 years old and she had to end her education to help raise her baby brother Saburo.

Saburo developed a high fever one day and three days later a bright red rash appeared, she explained. By the fourth and fifth day, the rash had spread all over his body. The next day, the rash had disappeared and Saburo’s eyes were glued shut. An eye specialist told the family that a Suboro had been infected with the measles virus. The doctor told them there was no way to save his eyes.

“That baby was very weak because my mother didn’t know how to raise kids,” she added. “He became blind under her care and then strange things happened.”

Tamiko’s father Hiroyuki prayed to God for a miracle with the headmaster of a local church for three days and nights, Glushien said.

The third day after the family had been praying Tamiko was cooking fish at home with Saburo on here back when suddenly, Saburo exclaimed, ‘Fish, Fish!’ Tamiko put him down to feed him and was astonished to see that his eyes were open.

When Tamiko was 18 she was studying religion for six months at a school in Tenri City, she was acquainted with her future husband, Mitsuji. The two became friends but upon graduation did not correspond with one another.

In 1937, Mitsuji was drafted and deployed to China at the beginning of the second Japan-China war. Within a few months of fighting he was shot above his right knee and admitted for treatment.

“Meanwhile, Tamiko was volunteering at her church, preparing care packages,” Tamiko and Glushien write on page 17 of the memoir. “Coincidentally, the packages she prepared were sent to the medical shelter where Mitsuji was being treated.”

The two reunited and fell in love, Glushien said. Mitsuji was briefly married by arrangement prior to the two falling in love but was divorced during his recovery period. Mitsuji asked his father for permission to marry Tamiko, which he granted. The two were arranged and later married on May 23, 1940.

During World War II, the entire country depended upon rations and Tamiko’s family was no exception, according to the memoir. Everyone was hungry. Then, on Aug. 6, 1945, the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima. 

“My aunt lived next to Hiroshima state and she recalled that a [newspaper] article that said that a bomb dropped in Hiroshima city and wiped out [the city],” Glushien said. “Then, she ignored it because so many bombings were happening in the city, so they forgot about it, then realized, ‘Oh, my God, my neighbors didn’t come back from Hiroshima. Something’s happening there and so people started to go there.”

Many of the people who did go to Hiroshima developed a mysterious illness now known as acute radiation syndrome, which developed when people were exposed to the radioactive “black rain” fallout, she added.

Luckily, Tamiko and her family were a safe distance from both atomic bomb detonations. Emperor Hirohito announced Japan’s surrender on the morning of Aug. 15, 1945. This was the first-time the people of Japan had heard their emperor’s voice, who was considered a living God.

In the post war era, Mitsuji started and failed several businesses, including an ice cream shop that also functioned as a tea house in the winter, a pachinko gambling machine parlor, which is described as a cross between a pinball and a lot slot machine, as well as delicacy store that sold snacks made from mochi rice that was pounded into a sticky paste and formed into rice cakes.

After several failed businesses, the family fell into bankruptcy.

The family’s economic status began to improve when a congressman began renting Mitsuji’s empty store for his reelection campaign, Glushien noted. The congressman was reelected and gave the family a gift of 10,000 yen and an expensive kimono.

With a small rental apartment in Kobe City, Mitsuji was determined to start a new successful wholesale market. The idea was a success and the business thrived for 15 years until the family sold their property in 1967 make way for urban development. They purchased a larger plot of land and built a new house on it.

“Many people wish to document their parents’ lives, such as how they survived, but sometimes it is too late when they are gone,” Glushien said. I am very fortunate that I was able to while my mother is still living.”

The memoir is available at www.lulu.com/us/en/shop/tamiko-shimoyama-and-masako-glushien/tamiko-a-family-history/paperback/product-21660174.html.