中村道子氏お悔みへの返礼
青木怜子 GWI (IFUW)元会長より（2021.5.5）
Dear Members of GWI,
Thank you very much for your warm and touchy condolences given to M. Nakamura on
her passing recently.
Mails reaching us, as you might have noticed it, were tremendously numerous, comingfrom almost all over the world, which evidently showed how she had been missed bymany and how deeply she was beloved and considered as an important person to GWI.
Indeed, she deserved them because of her deeply committed contributions toGWI/IFUW and because of her amiable personalities.
As some of you may know, and as Kay Fusano already mentioned in her recent mail to
Elizabeth Poskitt on Discussion line, JAUW had two big stars by the name of M.
Nakamura, both of them were so active for many years in the past for IFUW. One
was Mitchiko Nakamura who recently passed away because of heart failure, andanother was Michi Nakamura who had left us several years ago because of cancer.
Mitchiko, Professor of English as well as the president of a women's university inTokyo, was a taller one, and Michi, Curator and Head of the Library at Tsuda Women'sCollege was a shorter one. Both of them were initiative members of JAUW,
contributing greatly to IFUW since after JAUW was acknowledged as a member ofIFUW in 1954.
Both names such as Mitchiko and Michi were known to us from the very start in ourorganization, and we understood it in the way that their names, one with "t" andanother shortened, were due to their growth in childhood in the US (and Michi byorigin) so that they could be easily and correctly pronounced by their Americanfriends. Mitchiko (as she used to say by herself, I am Mitchiko with "t"), was a tallerM, who served as a committee member of then the Status of Women of IFUW andserved as well the Chief Organizer of the IFUW Circum-Pacific Regional Conventions inJapan in 1979 (when Fumi Takano was the Second Vice President and Daphne Purves

of NZ was the President). Outside IFUW, she was socially active, too, as Alternative
Representative of Japan to the UN GA in the midst of adopting the Convention of theElimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women in 1979.
Michi, a shorter one, though without any official commitment to IFUW, gave aneverlasting moral support to IFUW, by managing the budget at home for supporting
the Office of IFUW. In fact, she even made her personal will before her death tocontribute some out of her own pocket for the use of IFUW for whatever the purpose
was. The will weas exercised by Yasuko Igarashi, the past treasurer of JAUW, bypassing contributions to Christine, then IFUW staff responsible to IFUW treasure.
Besides, what we should not forget about mentioning for Michi was that she served as
the Secretariat of the Office at Yokohama Conference of IFUW in 1995. All theregistration was carried under her authority and responsibility. Besides, both Michiand MItchiko served at home as the past presidents of JAUW.
In spite of a distinction made by Mitchiko and Michi, or because of this distinction thatwas made, a funny confusion was made in Vancouver Conference in 1980 at thereceptionist desk of the dormitory of the University. Because of that the registration
was made under the same surname but with different first names, the registration
desk took them as a couple, and they arranged a room for Mr. & Mrs. Nakamura to be
put together in the same twin-bed room, applying some special discount rate for the"couple." However, both Nakamuras, instead of taking this profitable offer, byexplaining the situation, chose to be "safely" put in the separate rooms at a normal
charge!
Both Mitchiko and Michi were so active and alert almost to the end of their lives,
although while Michi attended our AGM a year before her passage, Mitchiko, becauseof her hearing problems, did not appear in person in any public meeting. Mitchiko,
however, conversed with us on the Internet, and we received always an appropriate
answer back to the questions we proposed. She was also humorous by sharing withme some jokes she heard from someone, and she was quite accurate up to the end
through our digital communication. She passed away very peacefully, as we heard
from their relatives, and celebrated the New Year's Day in quite good conditions. Her
death was so sudden to us, and we could not accept it at first, but considering her age
beyond 100, her physical strength was something amazing and extraordinary. So
now, having both Mitchiko and Michi had passed away, heartfelt obituary given to"Michiko Nakamura", either with "t" or without, or either shortened or not, must havereached to both of them.
Thanking you for having good memories of two M. Nakamuras,
All the best,
Reiko Aoki, the Past President of IFUW, 2001-2004