Council with Joponcie dolls son» lo him os gilts by
the widow of
о
lollen enemy.
Japanese in the muddy ditch." he re¬
cently said. "I looked long at the
photograph of him. his wife, and a
baby taken on a happy occasion."
Council stares quietly at the photo¬
graph. thinking to himself how lucky
he is to have his own family sleeping in
nearby bedrooms. He wonders about
the woman and child in the photo¬
graph. Suddenly, he feels sorry for
them.
"That same evening. I wrote the
Japanese government describing how I
obtained possession of the articles and
saying it was my desire to return them
to the man’s family." Council said.
He enclosed the photograph.
Seven months later. Council re¬
ceived a letter from the Japanese
Ministry of Health and Welfare which
read:
"It was a very kind act of yours to
send the photograph ... We promptly
took action of locating him with our
documents and also on radio and tele¬
vision and finally succeeded in placing
him as Kyocharu Taguchi. the late
navy chief warrant officer, and the
other two are his wife and daughter.
"You will easily realize how much
(the widow) was delighted to receive
the photograph. She asked us to send
you her letter, the translation of which
is enclosed with a photograph of her
daughter."
The widow wrote:
“We could not help weeping with
your compassionate spirit overcoming
the national distinction . . . Mr.
Taguchi w ill be most grateful to you in
heaven."
Friends
Л
letter from the daughter arrived
later.
"I don’t remember my father’s
face." the daughter wrote. "But when
I look into the album. I feel as if I were
with him . . . My father is happy
now.”
Council still corresponds with the
mother and daughter. When the
daughter married, she sent Council a
photograph of the wedding. At the
same time, she sent the photograph of
the family back — the same photo¬
graph Council had removed from the
body of her father. She said the family
wanted Council to have the photo¬
graph as a token of the family's
friendship.
Council exchanges Christmas gifts
with the family.
"One of my goals in life is to meet
them in person someday." he said.
The Professor
And His Angels
Our writer didn't see the Christmas
Star, but she
«I
id hear the» angels sing
anil was. in faet. one of them.
By ELIZABETH WILLIAMS
Each of us in all of Christendom
shares a sort of race memory of a night
when hearts nearly burst with joy.
There was a bright star near the earth;
shepherds watching their (locks saw
first one angel, then a host of them.
They sang a promise that the events of
this night would change the world.
We see it in our own terms: in
Raphael’s rich colors, in the Sunday
School Christmas pageant, in the lyrics
of a carol. Myself. I didn't see the star,
but I heard the angels sing; I was. in
fact, one of them. Every year, on a
certain night in December, at the First
Baptist Church in Durham. North
Carolina, a chorus of angel voices re¬
peated the story and rang forth the
glory.
The city of Durham in those halcyon
years had for its white youth seven
grade schools, tw’ojunior high schools,
and Central High. For all of these the
head of the music department was
William Powell Twaddcll. He came
from Philadelphia, and he had music
training at Penn. Yale, and Columbia.
How. or why. he was drawn to our
tobacco-scented little city I have no
idea, but by the time I was aware of
him he was well-entrenched.
Every Christmas season all the fifth
and sixth graders, the junior high
school chorus, and the high school
singers gave a program at the Baptist
Church, since it had the largest au¬
ditorium in town. The girls wore white,
the boys white shirts and dark trous¬
ers: high school students were decked
out in vestments borrowed from a
church choir. If there were thirty sing¬
ers from each elementary' school, sixty
from each junior high school, and fifty
from Central High — and there must
have been — there were nearly four
hundred voices in chorus. Parents
were on hand, naturally, and guests.
None of us had ever heard such music
before, and most of us haven’t since.
Mr. Twaddell Arrives
When the program opened, the
choristers were all in place — the high
school chorus in the choir loft, the
elementary school children, blazing in
their white, in the center pews, and the
junior high groups in the balcony, in
two groups across the church from
each other. An organist made the in¬
strument twitter and rumble above the
coughs of the multitude. The sweet¬
voiced ladies who were our gradc-
THE STATE.
ОЕСЕМВЕЯ
1980
14
