War Bride,1955

Last night I remembered a woman I had known during out first year of Graduate School at Indiana University.
We both lived in “married student housing” which consisted of row on row of trailers, placed on one of the old athletic fields on the Campus.
These accommodations had been installed to house army personnel during the Second World War and were still in use in 1955, the year of our arrival.
My husband and I had a “single”, one room with no running water. The only utilities we had were electricity and a kerosene heater. All bathing, toilet and gray water disposal took place at a common expanded trailer centrally located to serve about ten occupied trailers. The community also had a "Peeping Tom". A neighbor told me he had seen him looking in one of our windows at night and advised me to draw our curtains.
It was a hard year and I got very depressed as the year went on. It was our first year of marriage. My husband was preoccupied with his studies and his frustrating struggle with his Major Professor. I was trying to find work in a small community with more people looking, than jobs available.
I don’t remember how we met or why we connected but I became aware of a Japanese woman in an “expanded” trailer near mine. Perhaps we met in the bathroom. I was drawn to her feeling her isolation and sadness, perhaps common to us both.
I started to visit her in her trailer, for tea and conversation. She was a War Bride, meeting her husband during the American Occupation. It was a terrible mismatch, her husband a provincial, prejudiced, hick. When he was at home I was appalled by his treatment and attitude toward his wife. He seemed perpetually angry, dismissive, treating her like a servant. I thought he was ashamed of her.
The couple had two children, a girl about four years old and a large baby boy.
I wish I could remember her name but it is so long ago. Many months later she was still bleeding from the birth of the boy. She implied that he had been too large for her and had damaged her, inside during the birth process.
I began to get her history.
“Why did you marry him?”
“After the war there was no food.
He had access to food supplies. He had a Jeep. My family was hungry. My father said, 'Perhaps you should marry him'”.
Her family was educated. Her father had been a Japanese Diplomat in Spain. She had a good education, spoke three or four languages and played classical piano.
The tragedy of her situation became more and more apparent. It was a terrible situation. His family treated her as an embarrassment. There was no kindness, acceptance or support there. Her husband had given all their furniture to his family in preparation for their entering the University.
“Why don’t you go home?”
“These children would never be accepted in Japan. They would be treated like the children of a prostitute”
“ When I was leaving Japan my father became very apprehensive about the ocean voyage to America. He gave me a long red ribbon to attach to my waist in case the boat sank. He said the sharks would think I was a larger animal and not attack me.”