Background
Yaeko Batchelor was born on June 13, 1884, in Usu, Date City, Hokkaido. Her father was Mukai Tomizō (向井富蔵), a member of a powerful Ainu family, and whose Ainu name was Morotcaro (モロッチャロ). Her mother was named Hutchise (フッチセ).
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Yaeko Batchelor
Edit Profileバチェラー八重子
Career
Her name was entered into the family register as Yaeko Mukai (向井八重子), and her childhood name was Fuchi. Among Yaeko"s five siblings was the Anglican pastor Yamao Mukai. Yaeko"s father deeply trusted the Anglican missionary John Batchelor, and allowed Yaeko to be baptized.
However, when Yaeko was 11, her father died.
When she was 13, she set out for Sapporo to attend the Ainu Girls" School that Batchelor operated, and later advanced to Saint Hilda"s School in Tokyo. In 1908 Yaeko accompanied the pair on a trip to England, and was commissioned as a lay evangelist by the Archbishop of Canterbury.
She pursued this mission in Biratori and Noboribetsu. In 1931, a collection of her tanka poems entitled Foreign the Young Ainu (若きウタリに, Wakaki utari ni) was published.
Her adoptive mother Louisa died in 1936, and was buried in Maruyama Cemetery in Sapporo.
Her adoptive father John Batchelor died in 1944. Yaeko stored about 250 of his books and some of his other items in her home after his death. Yaeko Batchelor died on April 29, 1962, in Kyoto while visiting the Kansai region, at the age of 77.
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Born
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Died
April 29, 1962 (aged 77) -
Nationality
Japan