For Whom the Lotus Blossoms
About 1916, my grandmother was born in Five Points Manhattan, lower East side. Her folks left Belfast for the ‘promised land.’ Despite her poverty, she decided as a teenager to serve others, and her father worked extra hours in the shipyard to pay for her three years of nursing school to become a US Army nurse during WWII. After her death a year ago, I acquired several of her possessions, including a journal she kept while evading the Japanese Imperial Army and about a woman that would change her life in Manila’s steamy jungles. After being transported to Rangoon, she had to withstand Japanese air raids. She helped operating room doctors in horrible conditions all the while worrying about the Japanese and relentless insects. A rouge Japanese pilot attacked her medical ship during the Battle of Coral Sea and Guadalcanal, injuring her. Her injuries sent her to a Japanese American relocation camp in Northern California, where she found her life partner.
My grandma met and fell in love with a Japanese Judo master in the prison camp through her own mastery of Kung-Fu. Because of her Japanese ethnicity, her mate was arrested after completing half of law school when the war began. Her mate eventually worked near Capitol Hill as an attorney until retirement.
Due to her dedication to duty in harsh conditions and acknowledged abilities, she advanced quickly in rank and was sent to medical school to acquire her doctorate.
Her journal depict the horrors humans can inflict on each other, especially the Japanese’s atrocities on people, as well as the love she shared and beauty she came to treasure amid some of the world’s most unhabitual jungles. Her tight bond with another nurse helped them survive these horrific campaigns.
She adopted a five-year-old Chinese girl without a family and became popular in a Japanese American relocation camp, earning her army recognition.
I share these journals not only to memorialize the woman I never met, but all that we learned from her journals, and we hope someone finds the same inspiration and desire to finish medical school as I did. Furthermore, to honor all the women who stood in harm’s way to help those in need during that war.
Several names of locations have changed since the war. Any likeness to anyone past or present is purely coincidental.
