Many roads of Mitsuko Takahashi Weaver
Born Oct 20, 1934, in Tokyo Japan the 5th child out of 7. Her father was a ship boiler maker and was very talented at casting the giant steam boilers for ships and thus earned a better than fair living. Her mom was a rarity in Japan in her era having completed a high school education at the turn of the 20th century. Her mom was descended from a samurai family of means in the 1800s and before.
She related many prewar and wartime events that shaped her adult life; perseverance, survival, stubbornness, and the will to succeed and make her own path.
Many close calls occurred. During firebombing of Tokyo, she had been staying with another family and had gone back to her home a week before that family was consumed in a house fire. Later, all the children were evacuated by their schools to the countryside where she endured separation from her parents. They would visit when they could and bring food and treats for the children that otherwise didn’t have much to eat.
In high school, she sang in the chorus and was an avid swimmer on the swim team. She worked at the local fish market cleaning fish before school on most days.
Post war, she and her sister would go down the street to watch Douglas McArthur arriving at his office in a taxi. Somehow, she gravitated to Western culture, perhaps through going to movies. She worked as an office clerk and took flower arranging and sewing.
She made her way to the local US Air Force base and took a job as a cafeteria worker. This is where she met her future husband, Dave Weaver. She recounted that he was always hungry and would ask her for another scoop of whatever was on the menu, and she always refused. Dave took a liking to her and also would ask her out along with the extra scoop of food and the answer to both was “no”. Her friend cajoled her in finally going out with Dave as Dave was also her boyfriend’s roommate.
Things moved along and with the blessing of only her father, Dave and Mitsuko married. You can image the angst amongst the family with this decision in post war Japan in marriage to the enemy as some viewed it, but all was put aside as they realized that Dave was a great husband and provider.
The next 20 years of military life involved moves to Maine, Virginia, Japan again, Cape Cod, Washington state, Texas, North Carolina and back to her final home in Virginia where she live out her life for the next 50 years. She became a hairdresser and let her creative side shine by learning to oil paint landscapes and portraits and practiced piano. Further enjoyed gardening on her 5 acres. She also became a US citizen of which she was very proud of.
She overcame and lived with many health issues including a stroke and other maladies, but this never slowed her down much and she never complained much about her physical limitations.
Her immense joy was her grandchildren, Harris and Kurt and they meant everything to her, and she always bragged about how handsome and smart they are. In her final years she had rare opportunity to meet and hold her great grandchildren and she very much enjoyed viewing pictures of them.
Over the course of 90 years, she led a remarkable life and was privileged to journey to nearly all 50 states with occasional trips to Japan. We can unequivocally state her journey through life took her far and wide.
