It might seem anachronistic, but when I first met her, Haru Reischauer seemed like an unapproachable person. It was not only because she was the wife of former US Ambassador to Japan, Edwin Reischauer, a highly respected diplomat, a noted scholar and a "University Professor" of Harvard. It was also her noble birth as a grand-daughter of Duke Matsukata Masayoshi, one of the Genkun during the Meiji Era. She had certainly lived in a different world from me.

The first time I met her was in 1968 at a tea party held at the Official Residence of the President of Harvard University, welcoming the wives of new comers to the Harvard Community. At both ends of a huge oval table in the dining hall, beautifully carpeted with a Persian rug, two ladies were sitting serving tea and coffee. One of the hostesses was Mrs. Haru Reischauer who, together with her husband Ambassador Reischauer, had just come back from Japan to resettle in Harvard Community. She looked so dignified and poised with her neatly arranged hair.

Some years passed before I began to see Mrs. Reischauer more regularly. I was invited to join the Tennis Club for the Harvard Wives in which she was one of the regular members. Soon we were calling each other on a first-name basis and enjoying tennis games together. I felt Haru-sanﾕs way of returning the ball so carefully was a reflection of her quiet and modest character. One day in the early summer, the members of the Club decided to have lunch together. I was pleasantly surprised when she volunteered to invite us all to her house.

The Reischauers' Residence was about a ten minute drive from Cambridge, located in the woods adjacent to the Belmont Country Club. It was not a typical New England colonial house with small windows. It was instead a contemporary split level house, usually popular in the warmer climates like California, and had a large glass door leading to an outdoor patio.

The whole living room was decorated tastefully in the oriental style, and on the walls hung authentic scrolls and drawings. She invited us to the patio where she served us drinks and a lobster salad, a specialty of New England. Haru-san prepared the whole lunch by herself, and entertained us very warmly.

As I was about to leave the house, I saw an old-fashioned typewriter, and books and papers piled up on the dining table. I asked Haru-san if Professor Reischauer worked in the dining room. Haru-san answered shyly, "I am the one who is working here. I am writing a family history starting with my paternal and maternal grandfathers." Matsukata Masayoshi, the paternal grandfather of Haru-san, was a well-known statesman of the Meiji Era. But I learned for the first time that her maternal grandfather, Arai Ryoichiro, was a pioneer in the Japan-US silk trade, and that he spent most of his life in the United States until he died there. One of the things I remember from this conversation was Haru-san's comment, "In the beginning of the Meiji Era, our grandfathers used to write letters to their friends in English." And she showed me some of the old letters, all neatly hand written.

In the United States during the 70s, there was a shift from the concept of America as a "Melting Pot" where everyone became an American regardless of his or her birth, to "Roots" where individuals valued their own racial and cultural backgrounds and identities. It was a time when many people wrote autobiographies tracing their own roots, such as best-selling novel entitled "Roots" by Alex Haley. I naturally thought of Haru-sanﾕs work as a contribution to this body of literature. Thereafter, every time I saw her, I asked her when she expected to finish the book, thinking that she had better take advantage of this trend in the publishing industry. But she never looked in a hurry and kept her own pace of work. Later I learned that she had thought of this grand idea of writing her own family history many years before, just after she graduated from college, and she continued this research at a slow but steady pace. How could I have imagined then that she had such a great life-plan?

My affection for Haru-san and my interest in her life work increased as time went by. So when I had an opportunity to do interviews for a Japanese womenﾕs magazine, I took advantage of it and asked her to talk for the magazine about her personal history.

Until then, we spoke only in English when we saw each other. The interview was the first occasion to talk with her in Japanese. I was surprised to find that she was rather uncomfortable in handling Japanese. Her earnest and polite manner of speaking in Japanese reminded me of a schoolgirl speaking to her teacher in a classroom.

It was in this interview that I found Haru-san had very little Japanese education. Although she was born and brought up in Japan, she spent only one year in a Japanese elementary school, and otherwise a British governess and an American tutor taught her and her sisters in English at home. For secondary education, she went to the American School in Tokyo where Ed Reischauer was a senior, and then went to Principia College in the United States.

I remember how amazed I was to learn that a family could actually educate their children totally in English during this period of strong nationalism in pre-war Japan. This was even more amazing when you consider that it took place in the noble Matsukata Family, one of the leading families of the day in Japan. This piqued my curiosity to find out how an upper class family could carry on this unique life which was so contradictory to the trend of the times. And that is why I longed so much for the completion of her family history.

Maybe Haru-san sensed my strong interest in her work. She began to mention that she would like me to translate her book into Japanese. But I kept smiling in a typical Japanese manner, never giving her a clear answer. My hesitation was not out of modesty. It was because I felt heavy responsibility in translating the life work of Haru-san. Moreover, I knew too well the difficulties that would arise in the process of translating back into Japanese a book written in English covering the history of Japan from the Meiji period.

But by the time when she finished writing and the manuscript was sent to an American publisher, Haru-san told me that only a person who had lived both in Japan and the United States and had experienced the two cultures could read between the lines of her work. She was much too gracious in thinking that I was one of them.

Ambassador Reischauer, a good advisor of Haru-san all through her work, also urged me to accept the job, and finally I decided to undertake the task. Soon afterward, I had the opportunity to go into politics, and ended up doing some of the translation during the election campaign. I found that the family history of Haru-san was intertwined very closely with the history of Japanese politics, economy and society around the time of the Meiji Restoration and afterwards. For this reason, it was such a rewarding experience for me, as a freshman in politics, to be involved in this work.

In November 1987, a party was organized, celebrating the publication both of Haru-san's "Samurai and Silk" and her husband, Ed Reischauer's "My Life Between Japan and America". In my office at the Diet, hangs a picture we took together on that occasion. In this picture, she smiles happily next to Ed Reischauer. Her smile shows her deep satisfaction and self-confidence in completing her lifework. It was apparently one of the highlights of her life: Haru-san was no longer in the shadow of her husband.

May her soul rest in peace.

With deep appreciation,

Wakako Hironaka