| Notes |
- Miyoke was 81 years of age when she died.
Rochester Democrat and Chronicle, 2 Jun 2007
Miyoko Inouye Bassett
Miyoko Inouye Bassett, 81, on May 26, 2007, at her home in Pittsford, N
Miyoko Inouye Bassett was born in Sacramento CA in 1925, to parents from
Hiroshima and Tokyo, Japan. Living in California during World War II, Miyoko
and her family were incarcerated in the Japanese Internment Camps along with
120,000 others of Japanese ancestry, her family in the camps in Tule Lake, CA
and Jerome, AR. With the help of the National Japanese Student Relocati
Council and the Quakers, Miyo and her two older brothers were able to leave
the camps to attend Swarthmore College. Miyoko graduated from high school in
Tule Lake in 1943, and from Swarthmore in 1947. Mikoyo attended Temple Medical
School in Philadelphia, graduating in 1951. She did her medical internship at
Mt. Auburn Hospital in Cambridge, MA; there she met her husband-to-be, David
R. Bassett. They were married in 1953 at the Friends Meeting in Westtown, PA.
Following her pediatric residencies in Philadelphia at St. Christopher's
Hospital and Children's Hospital, Miyo and David lived from 1955-57 in
Barpali, India where they both worked as physicians in a community development
project sponsored by the American Friends Service Committee. They returned to
continue medical work in Philadelphia from 1958-63 (and raising their family
of three young children). Between 1963-68, the family lived in Honolulu,
Mikoyo working as Director of the Outpatient Clinic at the Kauikeolani
Children's Hospital, and consultant at the East-West Center. The family moved
to Ann Arbor, MI in 1968, with Miyoko as Assistant Clinical Professor of
Pediatrics at the University of Michigan Medical School. In June, 2005, Miyoko
and David moved to the retirement community at The Highlands in Pittsford.
Miyoko and David became members of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers)
in 1960. She and her husband were steadfast in their commitment to peace. With
others, they sought to develop a legislative means to allow those who share
their conscientious objection to war to find peaceful alternatives for their
military tax dollars (now called the Religious Freedom Peace Tax Fund Bill).
Miyoko served on the Boards of the American Friends Service Committee, the
Friends School in Detroit, the Ecumenical Center for International Students,
and the Memorial Advisory and Planning Society of Ann Arbor. She also
participated in International Neighbors, a group which welcomes and becomes
friends with newly arriving women from many countries. In her medical work and
other activities, the message of love was the guiding beacon in her spiritual
message in her life. Miyoko is survived by her husband of 54 years, David;
their daughter, Helen of Arlington, MA and three sons, Jeffrey, Adam and
Justin Mansfield; their son David, Jr. and wife Laura of Knoxville, TN and
sons, Dylan Chun and Stephen; and their daughter Joanna and husband Mark
Kellogg and son, Robert of Rochester, NY, a very close extended family, and
many loving friends. A memorial service will be held Saturday, June 23 at 2:00
PM at Rochester Friends Meeting, 84 Scio St., Rochester, NY; a subseque
memorial service will be held at Ann Arbor (MI) Friends Meeting at a later
date. In lieu of flowers, donations may be sent in memory of Miyoko Bassett to
the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC), 1501 Cherry St., Philadelphia,
PA 19102.
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Bassett Family Association Database
1925 - 2007 (82 years)