Mother to son: ”Three things remember... one, your grandfather was born way up in the mountains of Okayama, in a little town: Niimi. Two, there he went to Ueno Elementary School, and three, your great grandfather was Samurai.”
These three things my mother told me before she passed away, the only information that she revealed about the families of her mother Taka, and her father Jotaro back in Japan, perhaps, that is all she knew.
The mystery... who, in our family, was the last living Samurai? Ishihara, Kobayakawa?
Finding the ancestral names of our samurai family, requires reaching back in time... past the time of Michie Kobayakawa (my mother’s cousin).
... and further... back to a time before there were photographs...
Note: On my 7th trip to Japan I learned that samurai were more than warriors, they were teachers, poets, artists, and community leaders, and that there were women samurai and female ninja.
These three things my mother told me before she passed away, the only information that she revealed about the families of her mother Taka, and her father Jotaro back in Japan, perhaps, that is all she knew.
The mystery... who, in our family, was the last living Samurai? Ishihara, Kobayakawa?
Finding the ancestral names of our samurai family, requires reaching back in time... past the time of Michie Kobayakawa (my mother’s cousin).
Note: On my 7th trip to Japan I learned that samurai were more than warriors, they were teachers, poets, artists, and community leaders, and that there were women samurai and female ninja.
