Features

Worked furiously to support herself

by Michiko Tanaka, Senior Staff Writer

Hiroe Kawashimo’s earliest memory is of her mother working. “She took me with her wherever she went,” said the 79-year-old woman of Hiroshima’s Higashi Ward. While her mother worked in the mountains cutting gramineous plants, Hiroe played nearby, climbing up bamboo trees. While her mother worked by day, she waited for her to finish by warming herself at an open fire at the work site.

“I worked and worked. That was all I did. If I did not work even one day, we would not be able to live the next day.” Hiroe’s mother, Kaneko, described her dire circumstances after the war when she shared her experience of the atomic bombing in Naka Ward on August 6, 1996. The mother and child’s life of suffering began on “that day.”

Kaneko was from the western part of Yamaguchi Prefecture. Despite her parents’ objections, she got married and started a new life in Hiroshima with her husband, who was a transport ship crew member. He was a fond father who took his eldest son on bike rides during rare holidays.

On August 6, 1945, the day the United States dropped the atomic bomb, he was back home on vacation, helping to demolish buildings in Hirosekita-machi (now part of Naka Ward), where they lived. Kaneko crawled out from under the collapsed house, and fled to a first-aid station outside the city, carrying her son. Her husband was also transported to the same first-aid station, but he died in the early hours of August 9. After returning to her parents’ home with his ashes, she was struck by severe pain in her mouth and was bedridden for nearly a month.

It was after that that she realized she was pregnant. At the close of the year, Kaneko returned to her ruined home and “gave birth to a baby in a shack” at the end of March. She relied on her father at home again, but she had to leave her eldest son in the care of her in-laws.

“Hiroe was tiny, so I thought she might be undernourished or affected by the atomic bomb.” Her daughter, who was exposed to the atomic bombing while still in the womb, was obviously different from other children. She was three years old when she finally learned to walk. She started elementary school in 1954, but was soon admitted to the hospital for a long time. She had tuberculosis.

Hiroe said she remembers adults around her stopping her from following Kaneko as she left the hospital. “I stayed in the hospital for a long time. I was unable to keep up with my studies because I could only attend school intermittently,” she said.

On the other hand, being separated from her daughter seemed to become a turning point for Kaneko. She jumped onto a bus and headed to the city of Shimonoseki. “I wanted to support myself without depending on my father as soon as possible.” She began working furiously to prepare for her daughter’s discharge from the hospital.

She worked at an inn, an infant home, and a hospital. She moved from job to job, looking for a live-in position. In 1965, they moved to the city of Kitakyushu, where Kaneko settled in as a matron of a company dormitory. Hiroe has few memories of this period, but she graduated from junior high school in Kitakyushu. She was 19 years old at the time.

(Originally published on April 28, 2025)