Yoshiko Lange

Yoshiko Lange passed away peacefully on November 24, 2018 at Hospicare in Ithaca, New York at the age of 93. She was born Yoshiko Shimizu near Tokyo, Japan on March 30, 1925, the younger of two children and the first daughter, and was raised in the small, seaside town of Numazu. Her beloved father passed away suddenly when she was only two, and her mother, Naka Shimizu, devoted her time to raising her two young children. Yoshiko looked up to her brother, Hiroshi. A few years later, her mother remarried and Yoshiko soon had a younger sister, Eiko, and younger brother, Yoshihiro. She adored her new siblings and took her role as a protective elder sister very seriously. Growing up, she enjoyed school and sports, being particularly adept at racing sprints, but she left school early to help take care of the family. Sadly while still in her teens, she lost her beloved mother.

In the mid-1950s, she was working as a shop assistant at the PX on the American base in Tokyo. There she met Roland Lange who was with the Air Force and stationed in Tokyo after serving in the Korean War. It was a fortuitous meeting and the start of a deeply felt, loving companionship and they were married in January 1956. Their first daughter, Cynthia Grace, was born in 1957. In 1960, the small family moved to Ann Arbor, Michigan, and in 1963 Yoshiko completed the process to become a naturalized citizen. Before long, despite looking after a young child, she began taking classes in her adopted language English, and completed her high school equivalency. Her second daughter, Rebecca Anne, was born in New York City in 1966. While looking after her two children and being a hardworking partner for her husband, she took courses at Columbia University, art classes at the Art Students League, and occasionally worked part-time.

The family divided its time between New York City and Japan, and later spent some years in New Zealand. In 1982, she and Roland returned to the States and settled in Ithaca, New York. There she began the first of many years working for the Cornell University Library’s Wason Collection (East Asian materials) where she was able to use her Japanese language skills to best advantage. She retired around 2000 to spend more time with her husband and was widowed in 2003. A year later she moved to West Danby to be close to her elder daughter and enjoyed spending time in the garden and getting to know her neighbors including Dayton and Lerena Lockwood and the late Dorothy Wright. In recent years, she enjoyed taking part in shared activities at Longview’s Adult Day Program.

A loving mother, loyal wife, superb cook, dressmaker, and avid watercolorist, she loved literature, music, animals, especially cats, and nature. She created exquisitely fashioned Japanese paper dolls and hammered together sometimes unconventional and somewhat lopsided but eminently functional shelving. She was endowed with a strong will, passion, intelligence, and great resilience. Physically petite, yet tough, polite, yet at times fierce, she was forthright, generous, kindhearted, quick to stick up for the downtrodden, and ever unhampered by the preconceptions of others.

Beloved wife, daughter, sister, and mother, Yoshiko was predeceased by her husband, Roland Lange, brothers, Yoshihiro and Hiroshi (Setsuko) Shimizu, sister, Eiko (Teruo) Fujimoto, and nephews, Noriyuki Shimizu and Andrew (Frances) Lange, and grandnephew, Will Arnold-Lange. She is survived by her daughters, Cynthia Lange and Bekki (Rodney) Bradley, her sister-in-law, Joan Lange, nephews, Adam (Jane) Lange and Katsuhiro Shimizu, nieces, Karen (Stuart) Lange and Hiroko Shimizu, a grandniece, and five grandnephews.

A memorial service will be held in the coming spring. Details will be announced at a later date, and Bangs Funeral Home will be handling the arrangements. In lieu of flowers, please consider a donation to one of the following: Community Arts Partnership, the SPCA, or the West Danby Fire Department.