Irene A. Uchida, 1917-2013

摘要

For so many of us, life seems to be one coincidence after another, some good, some not so much. This might be a good theme for a review of Irene Uchida's (Figure 1) life.My wife's routine for perusing the daily papers begins with the obituaries, mainly to check on which of our friends and relatives are still on this side of the grass. There in our local paper, "The Spectator," was the notice, under a lovely photograph, "Passed away peacefully on Tuesday, July 30, 2013 in Toronto in her 96th year ..." I sent off a copy of what can only be described as a delightful and informative column written by three of Irene's nieces to Joseph Mclnerney, the ASHG executive vice president. That precipitated an astonished telephone call from Joe, an old friend and colleague, to tell me that Irene's photograph was on the cover of the August issue of the Journal as part of a series on past presidents of the ASHG — it was simply her turn to be recognized.Some sort of chronology is essential for any description of a life, but in this case, it is poignant. Irene was born in Vancouver, British Columbia (B.C.), Canada in April, 1917 and named Ayako, which, I'm told, means "splendid" in Japanese. I have no idea how that might be pronounced, but apparently her violin teacher (of course she played the violin ... and the piano, and the organ) had such difficulty with it that she gave the little Ayako a Canadian name, Irene. The family described the young Irene as "feisty, fun loving, and gracious." I could do no better than that and might add that "feisty" soon became a vital characteristic. Irene's parents were church-goers, but the four sisters were more interested in the community activities where Irene, in addition to playing for the church services, provided much of the music for the kids and hung out with a group that became known as "Irene's Bunch."