I was born in 1930 as the only child to Yoshitaro Sakurai and Shin Yanagisawa in Tokyo, Japan. Not having any other siblings, my childhood was very lonely. My dolls kept me company and helped form my future artistic ideas and images. I attended the Nakahara Elementary School, Chofu Private High School for Girls, and Jesen Junior College. After World War II, I began working for the Quarter Master Company in Shinagawa, Japan. There I met my husband and got married on St. Patrick's Day in 1952. As a U.S. war bride, I came to Benton Harbor, Michigan, in autumn of 1952, where I made history as the town's first war bride. While a spouse of a U.S. soldier until he retired, I traveled all over the United States and two times to Germany. After thirty years of marriage, my husband passed away in 1982, and I started painting shortly afterward to forget my loneliness and pain. I began my artistic studies at the Art League School of Washington, D.C. I started in oils and switched to watercolors and have had several moderately successful art shows and selling of my work. Recently, I have started a series in acrylic. God has given me the artistic talent to paint his beautiful creations. I express my happiness or sadness through my work. I continue to paint as a form of self-expression and to show people the world of beauty that God, the greatest artist, created. Painting gives me the enjoyment to share my artistic talents with the world.
