On This Day in Family History - February 14

 Tsurumi Okatani married Lawrence Kessler

I don't know what the date was when my mother-in-law and father-in-law were married. So I'm choosing Valentine's Day arbitrarily. They were married in Tokyo, Japan. Larry was an American G.I. stationed in Japan. Tsurumi was a Japanese citizen whose father had been killed in Hiroshima when the atomic bomb was dropped there. He was not killed immediately. He died slowly of radiation poisoning over a period of months. Tsurumi was a young teenager at the time and helped care for him through his illness. Her mother did not want her to marry an American G.I. -- which is totally understandable. Tsurumi had left home and was living on her own (with a couple of girlfriends) at the time she met Larry. She was 19 years old when they met in 1950. Their first child (Alan, my husband) was born in Japan in 1954. Larry was still in the military and was transferred back to the U.S. in 1955. Tsurumi lost all contact with her family after that.

After coming to the U.S. they lived in California, Montana, Maine, Texas, Utah, and then finally came back to Fairhope, Alabama, where Larry's parents lived. 

Tsurumi and Alan (and his sister Vickey, who was born in Montana) stayed with Larry's parents while he served a term in Vietnam. After that he retired. They built a house on the family property, next door to his parents, and lived there until Larry's death in 1988. Alan lived on the property next door to his mother from then on until we got married, and we settled into our own house on the property a year later. 

This is the only other picture I have of Alan's father Larry Kessler.

Tsurumi lived with her daughter Vickey in Mobile for the last few years of her life until she got too sick, and then she stayed with us and we took care of her until she died on 25 April 2022 at the age of 91.