[Time Passes] More of a Keio Person Than Anyone Else: Passing of Ms. Tae Koizumi

2025/04/22

Ms. Tae Koizumi passed away on December 15, 2024, at the age of 99. During her funeral held on the 21st of the same month at St. Andrew's Cathedral in Iikura, the Keio School Flag of the Keio University Athletic Association Tennis Club was displayed beside her casket.

Although Ms. Tae was a graduate of Sacred Heart School and became a Special Keio University alumni in 2008, she did not actually graduate from Keio University. If one thinks about it, the sight of the Keio School Flag—and specifically the Tennis Club flag—at her funeral was quite unusual, yet likely no one in attendance had any doubts about it.

I was privileged to have 20 years of interaction with Ms. Tae, whose father was Shinzo Koizumi—an economist, former Keio University President, former Chair of the Board of Councilors, Director of the Athletic Association Tennis Club, a great supporter of all sports, and well-known as the tutor to the Crown Prince (now Emperor Emeritus). The starting point of our relationship was editing the book "Talking About My Father, Shinzo Koizumi" (Keio University Press, 2008) through more than 20 interviews conducted alongside Keita Yamauchi, current Vice-President, and Soji Kamiyoshi, a teacher at the Yochisha Elementary School.

I thought I had a certain level of knowledge about Shinzo Koizumi, but her stories were filled with memories of her father's diverse social circles—relatives, the Tennis Club, Mokuyokai, Izumikai, Hakusuikai, and so on—seen through a daughter's eyes. At first, I was intimidated because there was so much I didn't know. When she said "My uncle..." she meant the novelist Takitaro Minakami; "My brother..." was Nobukichi Koizumi, who died in the war; "Mr. Yoshida" could refer to Kogoro Yoshida, the head of Yochisha, or sometimes Shigeru Yoshida. I soon became captivated by her storytelling, where historical figures like Koda Rohan, Eitaro Noro, Mitsumasa Yonai, and Shincho Kokontei appeared one after another. Even "Yukichi Fukuzawa," the benefactor of the Koizumi family, was spoken of as a living presence whose breath could be felt, making him feel much closer to me as well.

What I found interesting about the Koizumi family was that it was not a household where everyone sat and listened to the father's lectures, but rather a home filled with casual chatter and equal exchanges between the parents and their one son and two daughters. There was a daily life of rich mutual expression, seasoned with subtle and sometimes intense humor. A humanized, life-sized Shinzo Koizumi emerged from Ms. Tae's words—a man who, contrary to his cool and composed image, was the most talkative of them all and had a certain approachable vulnerability.

Her father, Shinzo, would tease a young Ms. Tae, saying things like "I picked you up from under a bridge" or "When you were born, I thought a cat was meowing." Ms. Tae, who hated this, once shot back, "If you picked me up, how do you know what I sounded like when I was born?" Her father, finding no fun in the conversation anymore, stopped telling that story. There was also the story of her father being scolded by his doctor—a war veteran—while hospitalized at Keio Hospital for severe burns from an air raid; when he said "It hurts" during a gauze change, the doctor snapped, "Of course it does, you're injured!" Or the time he invited members of the Imperial Family to his home so they could experience civilian life; in his spirit of hospitality to make them feel at ease, he abruptly asked, "Your Highness, do you talk in your sleep?" In this way, the daily life of the Koizumi family kept "Professor Shinzo Koizumi"—who would otherwise be a distant figure above the clouds—firmly grounded on earth.

I particularly like Ms. Tae's description of her father watching the Waseda-Keio rivalry. His figure watching with binoculars from the VIP seats at Meiji Jingu Stadium "looked like a commander to a biased eye, but also like a spy ringleader." When he had to watch from home for some reason and defeat was imminent, the family would watch his back as he "sat like a rock," his whole body saying "you never know until the last ball" ("Father Shinzo Koizumi"). You can almost see the steam rising from Professor Koizumi's head. Unlike the dignified and somewhat austere essays of her older sister, Kayo Akiyama, Ms. Tae's stories were humorous and overflowing with love.

However, that smoothness was lost when she spoke of the war. During one interview, a tension I had never felt before surfaced when she used the expression that her brother's death in battle was, for her father who had sent students to the battlefield, "I believe, an act of atonement."

Ms. Tae told me, despite our age difference of over 50 years, "Please think of me as a friend," and she truly treated me as such. Happy to hear this, I often wrote her letters from my travels. I was invited to gatherings of her friends, and I even joined her, Mr. Yamauchi, and Mr. Kamiyoshi to visit the graves of the Koizumi family and her mother's family, the Abe family, at Tama Cemetery.

What has become my greatest asset is the rediscovery of the spirit of Keio University through Ms. Tae. Reflecting on his own life as a student, Shinzo Koizumi wrote that the character of the students was natural, free of hypocrisy, that acting superior was not in fashion, and that it was free, tolerant, and refreshing, making him feel that he had "entered a good school." That spirit filled Ms. Tae and those around her. Ms. Tae's way of life spoke more eloquently than any literature about what kind of people Keio University fosters. I want to express my heartfelt gratitude for making me want to inherit and further nurture the spirit of a true Keio person.