Ishikawa Unknown Letter (July 8, 1890)

Due to difficulty following the letter’s penmanship, the author and recipient are unknown. However, the body of this brief letter describes Genzaburo Ishikawa as a “most worthy gentlemen.”Genzaburo Ishikawa (July 27, 1866 - December 7, 1956) was born in Tatebayashi, Gunma-prefecture, Japan. When he was only two years old, his father died. In 1876, he moved to Tokyo, where his mother had been born. On September 30, 1886, he left Japan and entered the Westminster Prep School in San Francisco. Three years later, he entered the Pacific Theological Seminary in San Francisco. The following March, he moved to Massachusetts and entered the Mount Hermon Prep School. That September, he enrolled at Springfield College. In 1891, he was one of the original 18 students to play in the first game of basketball created by Dr. James Naismith. Most famously, he is credited with a drawing of the first game of basketball that appeared in the 1892 Triangle edition that announced the game to the world. In 1892, he graduated from Springfield College and became a director of the San Francisco YMCA. He stayed in this position for five years, at which point he left to enter the University of Wisconsin (Madison). In 1899, he submitted his master’s degree thesis. In 1901, he submitted his doctoral degree thesis and returned to Tokyo with Mary MacRea, whom he married that August. In 1903, he began working at the Mitsui Products Company, Ltd. In Tokyo. Five years later, he was promoted to general manager of the company’s branch in Hamburg, Germany. On April 4, 1906, his first child, Akemi, was born. By 1917, Ishikawa was having a hard time in Hamburg due to World War I, so he returned to Tokyo. However, his wife and daughter moved to Alexandria, Canada, and never again returned to Japan. In 1918, he left the Mitsui Products Company, Ltd. In 1923, he became a representative of the International Wireless Telephone Co., Ltd., in Tokyo. The following year, he became a member of the board of the directors of the NHK in Tokyo. In 1934, he joined the Board of Trustees of the NHK in Tokyo