THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, September 2, 1995 TAG: 9509020400
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: By KERRY DEROCHI, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Medium: 87 lines
The assignment was relatively simple, for a seamstress of Atsuko Semones' skill.
A client needed a green felt tablecloth for an upcoming ceremony. Its design had to match the pattern shown in a color photograph; its size had to measure 7 feet by 9 feet. It needed to be ready by today.
Semones agreed to the job.
It wasn't until minutes later, when Semones glanced at the photograph, that she realized what she was sewing. She stared at the men in uniform standing at attention on the deck of the battleship. She studied the papers piled on top of the cloth and the face of the officer leaning over to sign them.
She saw the date: Sept. 2, 1945.
And, then she remembered.
``I said,`Oh my gosh,' '' Semones said. ``This is what I'm going to fix?''
Semones, the daughter of a shipyard worker from a village outside Hiroshima, was creating a tablecloth for a ceremony celebrating the 50th anniversary of the end of World War II.
The woman who had stood in her schoolyard and seen the bright light followed by the mushroom-shaped cloud was helping commemorate the allied victory over Japan.
The irony seemed overwhelming.
``I never even thought 50 years ago I would be here in the United States,'' Semones said.
She was 8 years old in 1945, the summer the war ended.
At the time, she knew only relief.
Her family, perched on the coast of mountainous Japan about 12 miles from Hiroshima, had struggled to make ends meet. Her mother had combed the countryside for food, exchanging kimonos for sacks of produce. Her father had worked in a nearby shipyard, trying to raise enough money.
Each night, they left their home and walked to a hidden tunnel. They slept there with the other families from the village, safe from the American planes that came each night.
On Aug. 6, Semones went to school as she usually did. She was completing morning exercises with the rest of her second grade class when a sudden bright light flashed across the school yard.
The children looked up, confused. They hadn't heard the drone of U.S. planes. They hadn't felt the shaking of a bomb.
Then, they saw the cloud. It was large and brown and looked like a thunderstorm. She would later learn to call it ``mushroom.''
``The next thing, all of a sudden our teachers were screaming at us,'' Semones said. ``They told us, go home, go home, go home.''
Semones grabbed her younger brother's hand, and they ran to their house, and then later to the tunnel.
Days passed, and no one knew what had happened. Rumors were wild about an explosion in Hiroshima. They heard thousands had died.
A cousin of Semones showed up in the village. He had burns over most of his body. Another relative also came, her body burned in a pattern that matched the checked blouse she had been wearing. She would later run away.
A week went by before Semones and her family learned that the war was over, that Japan had surrendered.
``They said the war was finished, I was so glad for everybody's sake,'' Semones said. ``The most that suffered were the children. The government has a fight. Who suffered? The people and the children.''
Semones stayed with her family in the village and grew up to work in a nearby grocery store.
She was visiting a friend more than 10 years later when she met a handsome American sailor named Glenn. She married him, and the two returned to the United States. They now live in Pungo.
Semones, 58, whose nickname is Wanda, is an American citizen. She has worked as a seamstress for Davis Interiors in Norfolk for nearly 20 years. She's gone back to visit her family in Japan twice.
She says she has no bitter feelings about the war or Japan's surrender. She prayed while she sewed the bright green tablecloth and sang, softly, her favorite hymn.
She is proud of the finished product, handed over this week to the Douglas MacArthur Memorial.
``I wanted to do it, I was very honored,'' Semones said. ``I hope there will always be peace between the United States and Japan.'' ILLUSTRATION: Color photo by LAWRENCE JACKSON, Staff
American seamstress Atsuko Semones, from a village outside
Hiroshima, says she has no bitter feelings about the war or Japan's
surrender.
by CNB