Tour of Tokyo, Japan 1976 ~ Photo Friday

This photograph was found among my mother-in-law's collection in San Juan, Puerto Rico.  The heat and humidity of the tropical climate has faded this photo.  You can even see splotches of mold in the top left corner and in the bottom right corner (right on a woman's leg).  I spent a lot of time scanning some of the photos from Puerto Rico, and there are more in storage waiting to be scanned.

In this photo you can see my husband and his parents right in the middle of the front row.

His mother is sitting in front of the woman with the kerchief on her head.

Vincent was about fifteen years old, to her right. and his Dad is to her left. 

Vincent has a big camera bag on his lap.  

They took dozens of photos of this trip and bought a new camera on a side excursion to Hong Kong.

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The URL for this post is

http://nutfieldgenealogy.blogspot.com/2015/04/tour-of-tokyo-japan-1976-photo-friday.html

Copyright (c) 2015, Heather Wilkinson Rojo

Pearl Harbor and the USS Arizona Memorial Honor Roll

At the World War II Valor in the Pacific National Monuments in Hawaii you can experience the events of Pearl Harbor and the Pacific war.  I've been very fortunate to visit here twice in my life.  It is a solemn place to visit, and the memorial hall built over the remains of the USS Arizona is beautiful.  At the far end of the memorial there is a large honor roll to the soldiers who died here.  Most of these men are still entombed inside the sunken ship.  

On each side of the USS Arizona honor roll there is a smaller honor roll listing the survivors who have chosen to be interred with their shipmates.  These memorials list their names and year of death. 

The entire honor roll is listed online at Fold3.com at this link HERE.  It is searchable by name, by service branch and by home state. You can also search the muster rolls of the other ships at Pearl Harbor.  By searching here I found that there were three men from New Hampshire: Edward Blanchard Cloues, Joseph Stanley Rozmus, and Bruce Roosevelt Edmunds.   It is a wonderful genealogical resource. 

The windows on each side of the honor roll represent the "Tree of Life"

A replica of the "Tree of Life" window from the USS Arizona memorial sits on the plaza outside of the visitor center, near the place of embarkment for the tour boats that take visitors to the memorial in the middle of Pearl Harbor.  Most tourists do not realize the significance of this tall sculpture. 

The Interactive USS Arizona Memorial Honor Roll  http://go.fold3.com/arizona_memorial/

World War II Valor in the Pacific National Monuments  http://www.nps.gov/valr/index.htm

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The URL for this post is
http://nutfieldgenealogy.blogspot.com/2013/12/pearl-harbor-and-uss-arizona-memorial.html 

Copyright (c) 2013, Heather Wilkinson Rojo

Japanese American Relations fostered in Fairhaven, Massachusetts?

While we were in Fairhaven, Massachusetts for a tour of the Mayflower II in drydock, we visited the Northeast Maritime Institute.  I didn't know that this building was previously a Unitarian Church with a very interesting history until I saw these granite markers outside of the building...

THIS BUILDING WAS THE 

ORIGINAL UNITARIAN CHURCH

WHERE THE WHITFIELDS AND

MANJIRO NAKAHAMA ATTENDED

SERVICES IN THE 1840'S

CAPTAIN WILLIAM H. WHITFIELD

NOVEMBER 11, 1804

FEBRUARY 14, 1886

ON JUNE 27, 1841, CAPTAIN WILLIAM

WHITEFIELD'S CREW OF THE 

WHALING SHIP JOHN HOWLAND

RESCUED FIVE SHIPWRECKED JAPANESE

FISHERMEN ON AN UNINHABITED

VOLCANIC ISLAND IN THE PACIFIC

OCEAN.  THIS ENCOUNTER WAS THE

BEGINNING OF THE FIRST FRIENDLY

CONTACT BETWEEN THE JAPANESE

AND THE AMERICAN PEOPLE

WHALE SHIP

JOHN HOWLAND

"ONLY THOSE WHO RISK GOING

TOO FAR WILL EVER KNOW HOW

FAR THAT THEY CAN GO"

MANJIRO NAKAHAMA WAS THE FIRST

JAPANESE TO LIVE IN AMERICA.

HE WAS EDUCATED IN FAIRHAVEN

MASSACHUSETTS AND

PLAYED A KEY ROLE IN FOSTERING THE

RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN JAPAN AND

THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA BY 

ENLIGHTENING THE JAPANESE OFFICIALS

ABOUT WESTERN CULTURE, TECHNOLOGY,

AND DEMOCRACY PRIOR TO THE ARRIVAL

OF COMMODORE MATTHEW PERRY ON

HIS HISTORIC MISSION THAT ADVANCED

THE SIGNING OF THE U. S.- JAPAN TREATY

OF 1854.

I loved finding a hidden bit of American history here outside of this historic church.  I know that at the time of these events, Japan was a closed country, and Manjiro would have risked death returning.  During this period of isolation leaving Japan was punishable by death.  Instead he became educated, participated in the Gold Rush as a '49er, and eventually returned home.  He was recieved with great honor and worked with the ambassadors to the United States.  In the 1870s he studied military science in Europe and became a professor at the Tokyo Imperial University.  He died in 1898 at age 71.

You can read more about Manjiro Nakahama and his honorable career rising from a simple fisherman to a diplomat for the Japanese Emperor at this Wikipedia link:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nakahama_Manjir%C5%8D

The Whitfield-Manjiro Friendship Society
11 Cherry Street
Fairhaven, Massachusetts
phone 508-858-5303
website http://whitfield-manjiro.org/

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Copyright 2013, Heather Wilkinson Rojo