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senzenwomen2024-11-08 09:12 pm
nnozomi) wrote in senzenwomen2024-11-08 09:12 pm
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Tsuneko Gauntlett (1873-1953)
Tsuneko Gauntlett was born in 1873 in Aichi; her birth name was Yamada Tsune. Her parents Kenzo and Hisa were the children of a doctor and a horsemaster respectively, but had little luck in their own career trying to do business in Tokyo. For a while Tsune was fostered out to an aunt married to a doctor working with Hansen’s disease; she continued to seek advice and support from her aunt and uncle throughout her youth.
At age six she entered the Sakurai Girls’ School. When its first principal, Sakurai Chika, resigned her post in favor of Yajima Kajiko, Tsuneko was prepared to rebel; eventually, however, she became Kajiko’s devoted supporter and remained so all their lives. In 1890 she went to teach English at the Kyoai Girls’ School in Gunma north of Tokyo; among her students there was Okubo (Kubushiro) Ochimi, Kajiko’s niece, who was later to be her colleague in the Women’s Suffrage Association.
It was through the introduction of a British colleague that she met Edward Gauntlett, a missionary and fellow English teacher. He fell first; she was reluctant to accept his proposal for a long time, not sure she was attracted to him and also cognizant of the trouble inherent in marrying a foreigner. He persevered, however, and on the advice of her aunt and uncle as well as Kajiko, they were married in 1898 (Tsuneko’s mother, fiercely opposed, was persuaded to come to the wedding but sat sulking the whole time). Gauntlett was a respectable young Englishman with an extra dose of intellectual curiosity which had brought him to Japan. They shared not only a religion but also an interest in music; Gauntlett was an amateur organist, and Tsuneko had studied the organ and had the family musical ability (her brother became the noted composer Yamada Kôsçak ).
They were married in a Tokyo church. When they went to register their marriage at the local ward office, however, they were turned away: “there is no precedent for such a thing [as international marriage].” At the time, Japanese women taking up with foreign men were still seen as Madame Butterflies at best. Tsuneko applied to every relevant Ministry she could think of to find out the correct procedure, and was told only that nobody had ever done such a thing before, so nobody knew how to do it. In the end, she “ran away” in order to abandon her Japanese citizenship, applying at the same time for British citizenship, which she was eventually granted via a letter from Queen Victoria.
In 1901 the Gauntletts moved to Okayama (where a friendly Zen priest let them set up a pipe organ in the middle of his temple) to teach at high schools there. It was at this point that Tsuneko began to wear Western clothing, and to make Western clothes for her children likewise. Tsuneko’s brother joined them in Okayama for a while, receiving his early training in music from his brother-in-law (who also joined him in introducing table tennis to Japan there). The Gauntletts eventually moved to Kanazawa and then to Yamaguchi before returning to Tokyo in 1916, having gone through various health problems and had six children.
Tsuneko shifted her focus to social activism, working with Yajima Kajiko in the Women’s Association for Reforming Customs (Japan’s branch of the WCTU) for temperance and peace and against prostitution. She traveled overseas numerous times to speak at conferences on these issues. In 1920 she accompanied Kajiko to the West, taking care of her daily needs as well as tutoring her in English, acting as interpreter, and mending her aged kimono when it gave way unexpectedly during a party. She took the chance to travel to her husband’s hometown while in England, where his brothers and stepmother (who was relieved to find that her Japanese daughter-in-law was human and not a monster out of distorted paintings) received her warmly. In 1937 she was named president of the Pan-Pacific Women’s Association.
During the war, Tsuneko and Ted remained in Japan but kept to themselves, effectively under house arrest under the eye of the thought police as one-time citizens of a hostile country, although both had become Japanese nationals by this point (their oldest son Owen sued the Japanese government after the war for forcing him to take Japanese citizenship); they were fortunate enough to survive and not to be imprisoned, however. In 1946 Tsuneko became head of the Women’s Association for Reforming Customs. She died in 1953 at the age of eighty, followed three years later by her husband. Of their six children, two settled in Britain while four remained in Japan; all six worked as teachers at some point.
Sources
Nakae, Shimamoto
https://www.japanjournals.com/feature/72-culture/survivor4/1085-2011-03-21-12-00-10-9917180.html?limit=1 (Japanese) Article with various pictures (click through from pages 1 to 7)
At age six she entered the Sakurai Girls’ School. When its first principal, Sakurai Chika, resigned her post in favor of Yajima Kajiko, Tsuneko was prepared to rebel; eventually, however, she became Kajiko’s devoted supporter and remained so all their lives. In 1890 she went to teach English at the Kyoai Girls’ School in Gunma north of Tokyo; among her students there was Okubo (Kubushiro) Ochimi, Kajiko’s niece, who was later to be her colleague in the Women’s Suffrage Association.
It was through the introduction of a British colleague that she met Edward Gauntlett, a missionary and fellow English teacher. He fell first; she was reluctant to accept his proposal for a long time, not sure she was attracted to him and also cognizant of the trouble inherent in marrying a foreigner. He persevered, however, and on the advice of her aunt and uncle as well as Kajiko, they were married in 1898 (Tsuneko’s mother, fiercely opposed, was persuaded to come to the wedding but sat sulking the whole time). Gauntlett was a respectable young Englishman with an extra dose of intellectual curiosity which had brought him to Japan. They shared not only a religion but also an interest in music; Gauntlett was an amateur organist, and Tsuneko had studied the organ and had the family musical ability (her brother became the noted composer Yamada Kôsçak ).
They were married in a Tokyo church. When they went to register their marriage at the local ward office, however, they were turned away: “there is no precedent for such a thing [as international marriage].” At the time, Japanese women taking up with foreign men were still seen as Madame Butterflies at best. Tsuneko applied to every relevant Ministry she could think of to find out the correct procedure, and was told only that nobody had ever done such a thing before, so nobody knew how to do it. In the end, she “ran away” in order to abandon her Japanese citizenship, applying at the same time for British citizenship, which she was eventually granted via a letter from Queen Victoria.
In 1901 the Gauntletts moved to Okayama (where a friendly Zen priest let them set up a pipe organ in the middle of his temple) to teach at high schools there. It was at this point that Tsuneko began to wear Western clothing, and to make Western clothes for her children likewise. Tsuneko’s brother joined them in Okayama for a while, receiving his early training in music from his brother-in-law (who also joined him in introducing table tennis to Japan there). The Gauntletts eventually moved to Kanazawa and then to Yamaguchi before returning to Tokyo in 1916, having gone through various health problems and had six children.
Tsuneko shifted her focus to social activism, working with Yajima Kajiko in the Women’s Association for Reforming Customs (Japan’s branch of the WCTU) for temperance and peace and against prostitution. She traveled overseas numerous times to speak at conferences on these issues. In 1920 she accompanied Kajiko to the West, taking care of her daily needs as well as tutoring her in English, acting as interpreter, and mending her aged kimono when it gave way unexpectedly during a party. She took the chance to travel to her husband’s hometown while in England, where his brothers and stepmother (who was relieved to find that her Japanese daughter-in-law was human and not a monster out of distorted paintings) received her warmly. In 1937 she was named president of the Pan-Pacific Women’s Association.
During the war, Tsuneko and Ted remained in Japan but kept to themselves, effectively under house arrest under the eye of the thought police as one-time citizens of a hostile country, although both had become Japanese nationals by this point (their oldest son Owen sued the Japanese government after the war for forcing him to take Japanese citizenship); they were fortunate enough to survive and not to be imprisoned, however. In 1946 Tsuneko became head of the Women’s Association for Reforming Customs. She died in 1953 at the age of eighty, followed three years later by her husband. Of their six children, two settled in Britain while four remained in Japan; all six worked as teachers at some point.
Sources
Nakae, Shimamoto
https://www.japanjournals.com/feature/72-culture/survivor4/1085-2011-03-21-12-00-10-9917180.html?limit=1 (Japanese) Article with various pictures (click through from pages 1 to 7)
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(I wonder if anyone's ever done a meta-ish study of women writing women's biographies, especially of their semi-contemporaries--thinking of Winifred Holtby writing about Virginia Woolf, among others.)
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As it happens, I'm reading this enormous biography of Lytton Strachey at the moment, and there is so much of that going on at the margins of the story. Every bluestocking in London is writing a biography of every other! I do hope someone has done a great big network-analysis of all that.
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Oh, me too! Fascinating! Let us know what you think of the biography when you're finished.
(Have you ever read Frances Partridge's diaries, speaking of Strachey and women writing? They go on for decades and they're wonderful.)
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I should not be surprised yet I am!
I was worried about what happened to them during the war - glad they both survived.
Loved seeing the photos in the linked article.
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You absolutely should not be surprised lol, the more things change. Come to think of it, I probably owe the existence of my marriage lines to her persistence...
and yeah, it was definitely good to discover that she and her whole family made it through the war safe.