Background
Takatsukasa Kazuko was born on September 30, 1929 in Tokyo, Japan. She was the third daughter of Emperor Shōwa and Empress Kōjun. She was an elder sister to the present Emperor of Japan, Emperor Akihito.
1950
Takatsukasa Wedding
1945
Emperor Shōwa's family
1950
The Princess and her husband on their wedding day. From left to right: Princess Kazuko, Toshimichi Takatsukasa, Emperor Hirohito, Empress Nagako, Empress Dowager Sadako (20 May 1950)
Emperor Shōwa's daughters
和子 鷹司
Takatsukasa Kazuko was born on September 30, 1929 in Tokyo, Japan. She was the third daughter of Emperor Shōwa and Empress Kōjun. She was an elder sister to the present Emperor of Japan, Emperor Akihito.
Her childhood appellation was Taka-no-miya (孝宮). As was the practice of the time, she was not raised by her biological parents, but by a succession of court ladies at a separate palace built for her and her younger sisters in the Marunouchi district of Tokyo.
She graduated from the Gakushuin Peer's School in March 1948, and spent a year in the household of former Chamberlain of Japan Saburo Hyakutake learning skills to be a bride.
On 28 January 1966, Toshimichi Takatsukasa was found dead of carbon monoxide poisoning at the apartment of his mistress, Michiko Maeda, a Ginza nightclub hostess, giving rise to widely speculative rumors in the Japanese press about his alleged double suicide.
After her husband's death, Kazuko's misfortunes continued, as seven months later, on 22 August 1966, a knife-wielding intruder broke into her home in the middle of the night and assaulted her, causing injuries to her right and left hands and resulting in hospitalization for one week. A shocked Emperor Shōwa ordered that she relocate to within the Tōgū Palace in Akasaka, Tokyo, where she lived until her death of heart failure at the age of 59, months after her father died.
On 20 May 1950, she married Toshimichi Takatsukasa, the eldest son of ex-Duke and guji of Meiji Shrine, Nobusuke Takatsukasa. The marriage received much publicity as it was the first marriage of a member of the imperial family to a commoner.
The Takatsukasas had no children, but adopted their nephew Naotake Matsudaira (born 1945) of the former Ogyu Matsudaira clan, as their heir. Formerly President of NEC Telecommunications Systems, he has been currently chief priest of Ise Shrines from 2007 to 2017.
Empress Kōjun (香淳皇后) was the wife of Emperor Shōwa of Japan.
Toshimichi Takatsukasa was a Japanese researcher of trains. He was a descendant of Tokugawa Yoshinao and consequently was born into an aristocratic family, but, like all Japanese aristocrats, lost his title with the post-war legal reforms of 1947. He worked at TEI Park, a railroad museum in Tokyo.
