By Rinban Noriaki Ito
Her life was vibrant, bright, sassy, and devoted to helping others. What people didn’t see was the unspeakable horror of war that shaped her life.
Los Angeles Higashi Honganji temple member Florence Shioko Yamada passed away last December, a week before her 88th birthday. Four months earlier, her son and only child Ken passed away.
Florence was born and raised in Los Angeles until age 11, when she and her younger brother were sent to Japan for schooling in Hiroshima, where she lived with her maternal grandparents. World War II began and suddenly Japan and the United States were at war. At the war’s end, on August 6, 1945, Florence’s life changed forever.