was a Japanese woman of the Meiji era, who was a prominent social figure. She was born in Aizu

Aizu

is an area comprising the westernmost third of Fukushima Prefecture in Japan. The principal city of the area is Aizuwakamatsu.During the Edo period, Aizu was a feudal domain known as and part of Mutsu Province.-History:...

 to a family of senior retainers serving Matsudaira Katamori

Matsudaira Katamori

was a samurai who lived in the last days of the Edo period and the early to mid Meiji period. He was the 9th daimyo of the Aizu han and the Military Commissioner of Kyoto during the Bakumatsu period. During the Boshin War, Katamori and the Aizu han fought against the Meiji Government armies, but...

. In December 1871 she was sent to the United States for study, as part of the Iwakura Mission

Iwakura mission

The Iwakura Mission or Iwakura Embassy was a Japanese diplomatic journey around the world, initiated in 1871 by the oligarchs of the Meiji period. Although it was not the only such "mission", it is the most well-known and possibly most important for the modernization of Japan after a long period...

. She was placed in the household of Leonard Bacon

Leonard Bacon

Leonard Bacon was an American Congregational preacher and writer.-Biography:Leonard Bacon was born in Detroit, Michigan...

 where she befriended his daughter Alice

Alice Mabel Bacon

Alice Mabel Bacon American writer, women's educator and a foreign advisor to the Japanese government in Meiji period Japan.-Early life:...

. The two lived like sisters for ten years learning each others cultures. Sutematsu eventually graduated from Vassar College

Vassar College

Vassar College is a private, coeducational liberal arts college in the town of Poughkeepsie, New York, in the United States. The Vassar campus comprises over and more than 100 buildings, including four National Historic Landmarks, ranging in style from Collegiate Gothic to International,...

. Sutematsu's brothers, Yamakawa Kenjirō

Yamakawa Kenjiro

was a Japanese samurai of the late Edo period who went on to become a noted physicist, university president, and author of several histories of the Boshin War...

 and Yamakawa Hiroshi

Yamakawa Hiroshi

Baron was a samurai of late Edo period Japan who went on to become a noted general in the early Meiji period Imperial Japanese Army. An Aizu retainer famous for his ingenious strategies against the early Meiji government during the Boshin War to overthrow the Tokugawa bakufu, he was of the first...

, were famous in their own right, during the Meiji era.

Sutematsu married the Imperial Japanese Army

Imperial Japanese Army

-Foundation:During the Meiji Restoration, the military forces loyal to the Emperor were samurai drawn primarily from the loyalist feudal domains of Satsuma and Chōshū...

 general (and former Satsuma retainer) Ōyama Iwao

Oyama Iwao

|-...

; rather ironically, Ōyama had served as an artilleryman during the bombardment of Sutematsu's hometown of Aizu.

After Ōyama's death, Sutematsu died from the 1918 flu pandemic in 1919.

External links

• Oyama Sutematsu