Mineral Wells Index, Mineral Wells, TX

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  • Nancy Meaders holds the Japanese illustrated children's book on the story of her and the doll she was given by a friend who found it in the ashes of Hiroshima. She recently learned what the book said after she and her son had it translated. Not only is it about the doll she had for 63 years, but it's also about Nancy. Libby Cluett/Index

    1_scene with Kazu interviewing Nancy and William Meaders_6297.jpg

  • Today the small Japanese doll, depicted in this book illustration, cherished for 63 years by Nancy Meaders rests in a large case in the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum. Mineral Wells Index

    doll in Hiroshima Peace Museum_6302.jpg

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July 15, 2012

Hiroshima doll now has a story

Book written about doll donated by local woman to Japanese peace museum

Mineral Wells Index

By LIBBY CLUETT | lcluett@mineralwellsindex.com

Nancy Meaders may or may not have known the power of the contents of one letter before she was 17. But at this young age Meaders, now 83, received a pivotal letter from a 19-year-old childhood friend who served with the Allied Occupational Forces in Japan about a year after the end of World War II and dropping of two atomic bombs on Japanese cities – first Hiroshima and then Nagasaki.

The hand-written missive included a special object that would affect Meaders' life.

“It was the size of an ordinary envelope,” she recalled, “But I could tell there was something more than the letter.”

She opened the envelope and folded in the letter “like a blanket” was a child's small doll, no longer than the length of her hand.

“It had on a kimono – red – and it was belted,” Meaders said of the small present. She added that the face and body of the doll were pure white and she had big round eyes.

“In the letter he said that he found that doll in the rubble of Hiroshima and he thought I would like to have it,” she recalled.

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