World War 2

Mama Josie and the Angels of Bataan

Lynette M Burrows

World War II both brought many and shone a light on many horrors. (See my post on Hiroshima and Nagasaki) But among the awfulness there were shining stars. This is the story of Mama Josie and the Angels of Bataan. Early Life Josephine Nesbit was born on the family farm in  Butler, Mo on December 23, 1894. Nesbit was the seventh of ten children. Farm life was hard. Even the children rose at dawn and did chores.  Both her parents died before she turned twelve. Orphaned first her grandmother and later a cousin in Kansas took her in. She left high school at 16. Nursing as a Career Her sister was a nurse. After Nesbit spoke to her sister’s supervisor, she chose to become a nurse. Nesbit became a registered nurse in 1914.  An army recruiter came to Kansas City in 1918. He wanted nurses to join the Army Nurse Corps to help with the Spanish Influenza epidemic. Nesbit joined the Reserve Army Nurse Corps. By 1941 Nesbit had been an Army Nurse for twenty-two years. She’d enjoyed the travels of a peace-time nurse. On her second tour, Nesbit was a lieutenant and second-in-command at Stenberg General Hospital in Manila, the […]

14 Quotes About Peace

Lynette M Burrows

The survivors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki have made peace their number one priority. Did you know that school children in Japan take mandatory peace studies? Perhaps everyone ought to take such classes. This isn’t a class, but perhaps these quotes about peace will inspire some reflections and perhaps actions that will bring about a lasting peace. What Is Peace Peace is not the absence of war, but a virtue based on strength of character. Baruch Spinoza Mankind must remember that peace is not God’s gift to his creatures; peace is our gift to each other. Elie Wiesel Peace cannot be achieved through violence, it can only be attained through understanding. Ralph Waldo Emerson Who Wants Peace? While there are those who speak of war as some necessary thing, there are those who have been victims of war, soldiers of war—and all they want is peace. Read their quotes about peace. Peace is our number one priority. Sachiko Matsuo 83, Nagasaki The soldier above all others prays for peace, for it is the soldier who must suffer and bear the deepest wounds and scars of war. Douglas MacArthur I hate war as only a soldier who has lived it can, only […]

The Flowers of Hiroshima, A Book Review

Lynette M Burrows

When I first read this book, I had just turned 14. I have never forgotten the heartbreak. This is a review of The Flowers of Hiroshima by Edita Morris, re-read more than 50 years later. WHAT IT’S ABOUT Told in the first person, this is the story of a Japanese family and their American boarder. The tone is loving and tender and heartbreaking. Yuka-san, a young housewife, meets Sam Willoughby outside of her home. Sam, a young American on a business trip to Hiroshima, wants to stay with a native family. Yuka’s family could use the extra money. So Sam becomes her lodger. Yuka-san loves her family, friends, and neighbors. She worries about her husband. Takes delight in her two children, her beautiful sister, and her American lodger. And she hides the ugliness of post-atomic-bomb-life from Sam. She watches Sam fall in love with Ohatsu and hopes that he will marry her sister and take her to America. But Ohatsu loves another. And Yuka cannot deny her sister a chance for happiness. Then the shadow they live under touches each of them and changes all of their lives. THE SETTING Fourteen years after the atomic bomb fell on Hiroshima, Yuka […]