About Clara Whitney
Posted by M Sinclair Stevens.
Clara Whitney was born in 1861 in New Jersey. On August 3, 1875, when she was fifteen, she arrived in Japan from America with her family. Her father, William Whitney (a descendant of inventor Eli Whitney) had come to Japan to start a business school; her mother, Anna, hoped to be a missionary. The family remained in Japan for five years, then Clara's father's health forced them to return to America. However, in 1882, they returned to Japan (Clara's father died en route and her mother died a few months afterward).
In 1886, six-months pregnant, Clara married Umetaro Kaji, the son of her father's benefactor, the Japanese stateman Katsu Kaishu. Together they had six children. However, when Umetaro's father died in 1899, they separated. In 1900 Clara returned to America with the children. Clara Whitney Kaji died in 1936.
A Good Machine
Posted by Clara A. N. Whitney.
Tuesday October 8, 1878
(At a meeting of the Asiatic Society)
"Then afterwards Mr. Ewing, Mr. Dixon's countryman and friend, exhibited a phonograph which was very curious. He would shout a sentence through a tube and in a few minutes the machine repeated the same sentence with the same intonation, only in a 'squeeky, nasal American twang,' as the polite professor remarked, while Mr. Milne thought it had a strong Scotch accent! It was a very interesting machine and talked very well--for a machine. A prima donna sang in it. A Japanese shouted int it, and Mr. Dixon informed it in a high-pitched voice that it was a 'yoroshii kikai' [good machine]."
Old People's Party
Posted by Clara A. N. Whitney.
Tuesday, January 13, 1880
"We had the queerest party today--it was a company of old Japanese ladies. Although the youngest was sixty-five and the oldest eighty-one and deaf, we had a splendid time."
"...we had some jelly oranges and cornstarch pudding. The old ladies ate these things in continuous amazement, and exclaimed at intervals, 'We shall certainlylive long because of today's wonderful sights.' It is a saying with the Japanese that when a person hears anything new it adds seventy-five more days to his life, and so the old ladies said that they were in a good position to live long."
"After dinner I played the organ for the old people, which added seventy-five more days to their lives."
"The old ladies went away saying to each other, 'Dear me! Who would have imagined foreigners were so agreeable?' "
Clara and Family
Posted by M Sinclair Stevens.
This family photo was taken in 1900 shortly before Clara returns to America with her children. At this time, she is forty years old and has lived in Japan for 25 years. Clara's diary does not contain any information on her marriage to Umetaro Kaji, nor her reasons for leaving him after 14 years of marriage.
