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Ishii Fudeko (1861-1944)
May. 17th, 2024 10:17 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
nnozomiIshii Fudeko was born in 1861 in Nagasaki, the daughter of a highly reputable samurai called Watanabe Kiyoshi who later became an official in the new Meiji government, moving his family to Tokyo in 1872. Fudeko entered the prestigious Tokyo Girls’ School, the first public school for girls in Japan, and also studied English with the government-hired American educator William Whitney, becoming a Christian along the way. When former US President Ulysses S Grant visited Japan in 1879, Watanabe greeted him in Nagasaki and Fudeko served as the interpreter; Grant called her “the brightest woman in Japan.”
Since childhood Fudeko had been betrothed to Ogashima Hatasu, another samurai’s son known for his brilliance, but as she wrote to Whitney’s daughter Clara, she was reluctant to marry him. Salvation arrived in the form of Omura Chikuko, the domain lord’s daughter, who was about to marry the Minister to the Netherlands and wanted Fudeko, her childhood playmate, to accompany them. Fudeko studied Dutch and French to go along with her English and found Europe invigorating and enlightening. She wrote to her mother asking her to break the engagement with Hatasu, wanting to contribute to society rather than become a wife, and was told “They’ve been very poor since the Restoration, and also he’s ill. I don’t have the heart to do it, you tell him yourself.”
With the matter still unresolved, Fudeko returned to Japan in 1882 and taught French (alongside Tsuda Umeko, the English teacher) at the School for Noble Girls. Without any great enjoyment, she became one of the flowers of the Rokumeikan, along with Mutsu Ryoko, Oyama Sutematsu, and other well-born ladies. The Imperial physician Erwin Baelz, himself married to a Japanese woman called Hana, met Fudeko there and wrote that she was one of the most impressive Japanese women he had ever met, with her languages and her ability to move between cultures. At the Rokumeikan Fudeko also took part in charity bazaars, which she found frustrating, writing to Clara Whitney that ultimately they did no long-term good, and that education was what poor women needed for independence.
At 24 she gave in and married Hatasu, who was already very ill with tuberculosis. Three daughters (Sachiko, Keiko, and Yasuko) followed [Sachiko’s godmother was Tsuda Umeko, who wrote “I am afraid the infant won’t have too good a godmother on one side, but I think Mrs. Ogashima is a true Christian and will bring up herlittle girl in the way she should go”]. One of the three girls died in babyhood [reports differ on which one] and both the other two proved to be developmentally delayed. Hatasu died in 1892. Fudeko, age 31, turned down any and all offers of remarriage. She was active in charity groups supporting women’s education, also acting as Alice Bacon’s interpreter; she continued to teach, becoming principal of the Seishu Girls’ School, which offered vocational education for girls from poor families. In 1898 she joined Umeko as the Japanese representatives to the International General Convention of Women’s Clubs in Denver, reporting on its results to the Empress and writing “Are women men’s possessions?”. By the time they returned, the School for Noble Girls under Shimoda Utako’s leadership had become more conservative in its stance; Umeko founded her own school, while Fudeko took a hand in a kindergarten for poor children run by Noguchi Yuka.
At this point she found herself involved in the work of Ishii Ryoichi, a fellow Christian who was involved in education for disabled people. A seasoned educator, Ishii had come to realize the need when he rescued a number of girls from trafficking after being orphaned in a major earthquake; he discovered that several of them had intellectual disabilities. His solution was to found Takinogawa Gakuen as a school for children who needed this kind of help. Among them was Fudeko’s daughter Sachiko.
Fudeko wrote to her father “I’ve found my own path at last.” She and Ishii married when she was 46; he was six years younger. They lived in the next thing to poverty, dedicating their lives to their school; among other things, they set up a silkworm room where the school could earn its keep and the children could acquire a trade. In 1920 the children’s carelessness led to a fire which burned the school to the ground; Fudeko rushed in to rescue the ones left behind and was seriously injured, needing a cane to walk thereafter, which she minded less than her sense of responsibility for the children who died. They might have closed the school at this point if not for encouragement from Empress Sadako, who had been one of Fudeko’s students at the Peeresses’ School. Ryoichi died in 1939; Fudeko continued to keep the school running until the material and personnel scarcities and heightened prejudices of World War II made it impossible. She died in 1944, succeeded as school principal by her half-brother Watanabe Tei. Takinogawa Gakuen remains an active school to this day.
Sources
Ishii
Mori 2014
https://discovernikkei.org/en/journal/2024/2/7/umeko-to-fudeko/ (English) Account of Fudeko and Tsuda Umeko’s visit to Chicago to tour Hull House, etc.
Since childhood Fudeko had been betrothed to Ogashima Hatasu, another samurai’s son known for his brilliance, but as she wrote to Whitney’s daughter Clara, she was reluctant to marry him. Salvation arrived in the form of Omura Chikuko, the domain lord’s daughter, who was about to marry the Minister to the Netherlands and wanted Fudeko, her childhood playmate, to accompany them. Fudeko studied Dutch and French to go along with her English and found Europe invigorating and enlightening. She wrote to her mother asking her to break the engagement with Hatasu, wanting to contribute to society rather than become a wife, and was told “They’ve been very poor since the Restoration, and also he’s ill. I don’t have the heart to do it, you tell him yourself.”
With the matter still unresolved, Fudeko returned to Japan in 1882 and taught French (alongside Tsuda Umeko, the English teacher) at the School for Noble Girls. Without any great enjoyment, she became one of the flowers of the Rokumeikan, along with Mutsu Ryoko, Oyama Sutematsu, and other well-born ladies. The Imperial physician Erwin Baelz, himself married to a Japanese woman called Hana, met Fudeko there and wrote that she was one of the most impressive Japanese women he had ever met, with her languages and her ability to move between cultures. At the Rokumeikan Fudeko also took part in charity bazaars, which she found frustrating, writing to Clara Whitney that ultimately they did no long-term good, and that education was what poor women needed for independence.
At 24 she gave in and married Hatasu, who was already very ill with tuberculosis. Three daughters (Sachiko, Keiko, and Yasuko) followed [Sachiko’s godmother was Tsuda Umeko, who wrote “I am afraid the infant won’t have too good a godmother on one side, but I think Mrs. Ogashima is a true Christian and will bring up herlittle girl in the way she should go”]. One of the three girls died in babyhood [reports differ on which one] and both the other two proved to be developmentally delayed. Hatasu died in 1892. Fudeko, age 31, turned down any and all offers of remarriage. She was active in charity groups supporting women’s education, also acting as Alice Bacon’s interpreter; she continued to teach, becoming principal of the Seishu Girls’ School, which offered vocational education for girls from poor families. In 1898 she joined Umeko as the Japanese representatives to the International General Convention of Women’s Clubs in Denver, reporting on its results to the Empress and writing “Are women men’s possessions?”. By the time they returned, the School for Noble Girls under Shimoda Utako’s leadership had become more conservative in its stance; Umeko founded her own school, while Fudeko took a hand in a kindergarten for poor children run by Noguchi Yuka.
At this point she found herself involved in the work of Ishii Ryoichi, a fellow Christian who was involved in education for disabled people. A seasoned educator, Ishii had come to realize the need when he rescued a number of girls from trafficking after being orphaned in a major earthquake; he discovered that several of them had intellectual disabilities. His solution was to found Takinogawa Gakuen as a school for children who needed this kind of help. Among them was Fudeko’s daughter Sachiko.
Fudeko wrote to her father “I’ve found my own path at last.” She and Ishii married when she was 46; he was six years younger. They lived in the next thing to poverty, dedicating their lives to their school; among other things, they set up a silkworm room where the school could earn its keep and the children could acquire a trade. In 1920 the children’s carelessness led to a fire which burned the school to the ground; Fudeko rushed in to rescue the ones left behind and was seriously injured, needing a cane to walk thereafter, which she minded less than her sense of responsibility for the children who died. They might have closed the school at this point if not for encouragement from Empress Sadako, who had been one of Fudeko’s students at the Peeresses’ School. Ryoichi died in 1939; Fudeko continued to keep the school running until the material and personnel scarcities and heightened prejudices of World War II made it impossible. She died in 1944, succeeded as school principal by her half-brother Watanabe Tei. Takinogawa Gakuen remains an active school to this day.
Sources
Ishii
Mori 2014
https://discovernikkei.org/en/journal/2024/2/7/umeko-to-fudeko/ (English) Account of Fudeko and Tsuda Umeko’s visit to Chicago to tour Hull House, etc.
