Dear Bruce Hoffsommer,
Your e-mail concerning your grandfather was
referred to me. Since I have been associated with ASIJ since
1937 as, successively, student, teacher, parent, headmaster, and
now archivist; I'm the logical person to try to help you out. My
wife (also a faculty member) and I very much enjoyed talking
with your father when he was here for the alumni visit in 1989.
He and your aunt Abigail certainly know more than I about your
grandfather's time at ASIJ. However, I'll be glad to assist you
if I can.
WALTER EDWARD HOFFSOMMER was born August 1,
1880, at Battle Hill, McPherson county, Kansas. He first
attended school in Newton, Kansas, and later in several cities
in Pennsylvania, the first being Hazleton, to which city his
parents moved in 1888. Following high school graduation, he
attended several colleges; and in 1903, he was graduated from
Ursinus College, Collegeville, Pennsylvania. While he was in
college, he had joined the Student Volunteers. Th[e] opportunity
for doing missionary and educational work in a foreign field
presented itself, and he was appointed to Tokyo, Japan. This
appointment was under the auspices of the Reformed Church of
North America. Before going to Japan, Walter married Grace Posey
on July 30, 1907, and in August of that year, they went to their
new field of work.
He was appointed to a professorship in the
Meiji Gakuin, a Union Missionary College in Tokyo. Some years
later while in this position, he was granted a furlough to the
States, and upon completion of required work in Columbia
University, New York City, he received the Ph.D. degree in 1917.
In 1920, he became head of the American School in Tokyo, an
institution which had been established by women representing
Germany, England and Canada, for elementary and pre-college
education for foreigners in Japan.
In December 1922, he went on a
business-mission in the interests of such schools in the Orient.
He visited Korea, Manchuria and China. At Peking, China, during
the night of December 23, he became asphyxiated while a guest in
the home of a professor of the Union Language at that place. The
body was cremated and the ashes sent to Tokyo where funeral
services were held January 8, 1923, in the American School.
Burial was in the Buddhist cemetery behind Meiji Gakuin in a
plot of ground where also are buried several members of
Presbyterian and Dutch Reformed Churches, who had died while in
the service on the foreign field.
The family remained in Tokyo in order to
finish the children’s education. During the time that
Walter's widow remained in Japan, she assisted in establishing
the first business course in the American School, and she also
conducted the first dormitory and eating hall as co-executor on
the premises.
"Previous to 1920, Dr. W.E. Hoffsommer,
a member of the Board of Trustees, had been serving as chairman
of the Educational Committee. He was released from his duties
with the Dutch Reformed Mission in order to serve as principal
of the school. He reorganized the entire curriculum."
"...By 1921 the school appeared to have
become stabilized under the capable and industrious guidance of
Dr. Hoffsommer. Enrollment reached 120 students; 12 full- time
and 8 part-time teachers were employed. The American diplomatic,
business and missionary community breathed a deep sigh of relief
-- it had been a long, arduous struggle. The Board of Trustees
could now direct their attention to the cares of the day. Two
complaints had been registered against the children of the
school. One was ’rowdyism’ and the other was the ‘faulty
use of English’ -- this being defined as the use of slang and
the use of ‘Midwest’ pronunciation. With regard to ‘rowdyism,’
the principal's report to the Board related that one teacher had
thirty pupils between 10 and 14 years of age and spent her day
‘oiling places of friction caused by children of our best
families.’
The tragic death of Dr. Hoffsommer during
Christmas vacation in 1922 while on a tour of the schools for
foreign children in China, was a severe blow. Due to Dr.
Hoffsommer's outstanding organizational skills, however, the
school continued to operate smoothly under the direction of Mr.
Paul Gordon, the first coach hired for ASIJ's athletic
program."
Excerpted from The ACCJ Journal 9/5/1977. The
Journal is published by the American Chamber of Commerce in
Japan. The edition quoted featured an extensive 75 year
anniversary of the American School in Japan.
"Alfred Hoffsommer found the grave of
his father, Dr. W.E. Hoffsommer (ASIJ Principal 1920-22),
located in a plot along with other Meiji Gakuin teachers, in the
Zuishi-ji Temple in Shirogane Dai, Tokyo - right across the
street from the Happo-en Gardens, which are behind Meiji Gakuin.
The temple was originally supported by the Tokugawa Shogunate.
Meiji Gakuin has been contributing to care of the burial plot
these many years."
Quotes from the Alumni news section of the
Fall 1991 ASIJ Shimbun, an alumni newsletter of the ASIJ. Alfred
and Miyoko Bassett Hoffsommer are pictured in the Fall issue and
also in the Winter 1992 issue. They were on a visit to Japan
during May of 1991.
The Catalogue of the school for 1923 has in
its opening pages the statement which also is affixed to the
sundial erected in your grandfather's memory. The sundial was
moved from the school's 1927-63 site to its present location in
the Student Court in 1963.
IN MEMORIAM Walter E.
Hoffsommer - Who chose to walk with youth as a friend, pointing
the way ahead and teaching the lessons of life; whose memory the
students of the American School hold as an inspiration, whose
character they strive for as an ideal, and whose absence they
mourn.
I hope this information will be of use to
you.
Ray F. Downs
Headmaster Emeritus The American School In Japan
Correction: Information passed
along to us indicates that Walter Edward Hoffsommer took a
"Doctorate of Education" from Columbia Teachers
College. His dissertation is on file at that college's library.
