The town that paid his way

ITwo dogs and a New England winter

There were two sons, a daughter and two dogs in the Whitcomb household. Hiroshi, seventeen and newly arrived from Tokyo, had never had a pet. He made friends with both dogs.

The family ran the fuel business in Walpole, a small town beside the Connecticut River. Hiroshi would spend the school year with them. He had sailed from Japan in July 1960, flown with his group to Boston, and traveled on alone. Later, he would remember that last stretch as his first journey by himself.

Three days into school, a local columnist met “a quiet boy, with a shy smile”. The wooded hills astonished him. The prospect of a winter that could reach thirty below was rather less inviting: he looked forward to it, the columnist wrote, “with some apprehension”.

IIA thank-you for the town

Hiroshi had passed two examinations to be selected by the American Field Service. Only one applicant in twenty was chosen. In Walpole, people had been preparing for their student, too.

The high school’s Student Council voted to make a substantial contribution toward the exchange. Townspeople raised the rest. A local committee chose a household with children, so that the visitor would have a family around him as well as a school to attend.

When the columnist told Hiroshi how the students had helped pay for his year, he was deeply moved. He asked the writer to thank everyone who had made it possible. The people sharing his school had helped bring him there before they knew him.

IIIA little bit nervous

By January, Hiroshi was speaking to the Rotary Club in a neighboring town. It was his first public speech, and he admitted to being “a little bit nervous”. He talked about schools and everyday life in Japan. According to the club’s account, he was at his best when the questions began.

In spring, he took his slides of Japan to clubs around the valley. Then four other exchange students came to stay for a weekend. They were from Spain, Cambodia, Sweden and Turkey, and had spent the year in Maine. They joined his classes in Walpole, and Hiroshi cooked them a sukiyaki dinner at the Whitcombs’ house.

A photograph shows the visitors together on the lawn. The boy who had arrived alone was now helping welcome people to the town.

IVThe scientist they knew

Hiroshi graduated on 16 June 1961, one of twenty-eight seniors. Back in Tokyo, he wrote about what the year had taught him: across nationalities, people shared feelings and ways of thinking.

He had told the Walpole columnist that he wanted a life in science. That was the life his family would know: a research scientist in New Jersey, with a cello and a place in a chamber orchestra. Before it came the school year in New Hampshire, two friendly dogs, and a town that had made room for him.