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Leonora Lea Article
Leonora Lea Article
Lea was one of the few church missionary workers to live in Japan throughout
the Pacific War. Her collected writings and recollections of that period offer a
rare first hand English language accounts of life in wartime Japan.
With Bishop Michael Hinsuke Yashiro, Lea is credited as the founder of St.
Michael's International School, Kobe.
Born 30 March 1896 in New Glasgow, Nova Scotia, Canada, the eldest of
seven children born to Reverend Arthur and Mary Lea. In 1897 her father
volunteered to serve in Toyohashi, Gifu Prefecture, Japan as a missionary for
the Nippon Sei Ko Kai. Arthur Lea was subsequently consecrated as Bishop of
the Kyushu in 1908.[1]
During the war period Lea elected to remain in Japan and coordinated
emergency relief and food distribution efforts for the foreign community in Kobe.
Lea subsequently served as an executive assistant to Presiding Bishop of the
Anglican Church in Japan, Bishop Michael Hinsuke Yashiro.
In 1969 she was honoured by the Japanese Government and awarded the 4th
class Order of the Sacred Treasure.[2]
Published work
References
1. ^ Ion, Hamish (2008). Donaghy, Greg (ed.). Contradictory
Impulses: Canada and Japan in the Twentieth Century.
Vancouver: UBC Press. p. 14. ISBN 978-0-7748-1443-0.
2. ^ Yashiro, Takashi (1974). War-time Memoirs of Leonora Edith
Lea. Kobe: Momoyama Gakuin University. p. 49.