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Ray and Vicky Downs in Seattle
Ray Downs was Headmaster
from 1978 -1990.
Vicky Downs was the head librarian at ASIJ for 40 years!
Ray Downs
Ray F. Downs was born in Yokohama on June 20, 1932. His parents were
missionaries. He attended ASIJ starting in 1937 and stayed until 1941 when
together with his mother, sister and brother, he traveled to Auburndale, outside
of Boston, where they and other missionary families lived, dormitory style,
in a huge mission home. Meanwhile, Ray's father was sent by the mission
board to the Philippines where he was soon imprisoned by the Japanese
military and became the camp translator during the war. Ray attended
public school in Auburndale, then the Lincoln School which was attached to
Columbia University. This was followed by a year boarding at the Mt. Hermon School in
Mass. He returned to Japan with his parents in 1947 and once again
attended ASIJ, which had
been taken over by the Occupation and was now called the "Tokyo American School".
He graduated in 1950. He then went to Oberlin (BA in 1954), and
later received a Shansi Fellowship
which took him to Obirin Gakuen outside of Tokyo where he taught English
for two years. He went back to Oberlin in Ohio for a year of graduate work and
then to the University of Michigan for a M.A. in Japanese Studies. That is
where we met. He then taught at the Gilman School for a year (1958-59) and
we were married on June 27, 1959. We then camped our way across the
country, put our car and ourselves on a freighter going to Yokohama and
lived in a rental house in Naka Meguro while starting work at ASIJ.
Ray received a grant from the Carnegie Fdn. to develop Japanese language
and area studies at ASIJ. Until that time there was relatively little
study about Japan at the school. In 1965-66 we took a year's self-created
sabbatical to work in the U.S. and while teaching at the Park School in
Baltimore, Ray wrote and edited his book, Japan Yesterday and Today
published by Praeger (hard cover) and Signet (soft cover).
He became H.S. Social Studies Dept. head in 1960, and in 1978 was tapped
to be Headmaster. He retired in 1990, and went on to do other things such
as teach at Gakugei Daigaku and join serious birding trips to Bhutan,
Northern China and other places. He also worked on the archives at the
school and published several articles in The Ambassador,
many of them on various institutions near the school: "Chofu Airport", "Tamabochi",
"ICU" etc.
In May, 1997 he suffered from a cerebral hemorrhage which turned out to
have been caused by a brain tumor. He has been living with that, but seems
to be thriving on American medical techniques and medicines since our move
to Seattle in 1999. He has been working on the History of ASIJ with Vicky
since the late 1970's. He has also given many speeches at such places
as Drake H.S. (for a graduation), and was made a
member of the AAIE Hall of Fame.
Vicky Downs
Lavinia (Vicky) Davis Downs-
Lavinia Davis Downs (Vicky) was born Lavinia Lawrence Davis on Jan. 4,
1936 in NYC. Her mother wrote over 40 books, and Vicky published her first
article at age 11: a 50 word piece in Profitable Hobbies
Magazine. She attended many different schools during WWII while her father
was in the military, and graduated from Concord Academy (Concord, MA) in
1953, from Smith College in 1957 and received an MA from Univ. of Michigan
in 1958. She then worked for the Enoch Pratt Library in Baltimore for a
year before marrying Ray Downs in the church near her home in Brookfield,
Conn.
She started work as Head Librarian at ASIJ in the fall of 1959 and
remained in that job until June 1999. She wrote many articles for such
magazines as: The Arithmetic Teacher, The Horn
Book, International Quarterly, Newslinks,
The International Education, The International Schools
Journal, The Japan Times, Kaigai Shijo Kyoiku
(with Tim Olson), Journal of the ACCJ, The
Library Connection, Library Links East,
Mathematics Teacher, Newletter of the Japanese Language
Teachers Network, The Pacific, The Science Teacher,
Technology Connection, TELL Connection,
Top of the News, and The Washington Post. She also wrote many
article for ASIJ's Alumni Shimbun and The Ambassador.
In addition she wrote the script for ASIJ's 75th anniversary play entitle;
This is your Life ASIJ", the school's Bicentennial Program which was
performed at ASIJ and at the American Club in 1976, the half hour video of
ASIJ history entitled The Right School..., and "Showcase"
which was ASIJ's 85th anniversary extravaganza produced in a theater downtown.
She conducted interviews and wrote up pamphlets for use by the ASIJ community,
including a work on Japanese students at ASIJ (done in the late 1970's
with Ray Downs), The ASIJ Doubles Project and What is
the Long Term Impact of ASIJ on its Students?
For the Nojiri Lake Assn. she wrote and edited The Nojiri
Nature Handbook.
Ray and Vicky have just finished working with their editor on a history of ASIJ
which is planned for a late spring publication in 2003. They are also
working with Akane and Doug Jansen on a collection of stories about and
for the Nojiri Lake Assn.
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