Tatsuguchi, Shuichi (c. 1880–1932)

Shuichi Tatsuguchi’s life was one of significant service to Adventist medical evangelism in the United States and Japan. From the 1890s through the 1930s, Tatsuguchi’s commitment to Adventism was apparent in both his personal life and in his work in Hiroshima, where his faith increasingly placed him—and his family—at odds with Japanese authorities in the decades leading into the Asia-Pacific War. “[O]ne of the first Japanese” to covert to Adventism, Tatsuguchi and his family became key figures in Adventist communities on both sides of the Pacific.¹

Early Life, Education, and Work in the United States

By the time of Shuichi Tatsuguchi’s birth (circa 1880), Japan’s Meiji Restoration had created what historian Mark Ravina calls “a stable nation-state, not a revolutionary regime.”² The modernity and imperial dreams of the Meiji Era (1868-1912), combined with increased emigration of Japanese citizens to the United States, certainly informed Tatsuguchi’s life. In 1895, when Shuichi Tatsuguchi was fifteen years old, he left Japan for San Francisco and supported himself with his “culinary skills—an interest he practiced throughout his life to the delight of his family and friends.”³ He placed an advertisement in the San Francisco Chronicle in 1896 seeking “a situation as a school boy to do cooking or waiting” and added that he spoke English.⁴ Tatsuguchi became an Adventist after meeting Elder T. H. Okohira at a mission school in California. He knew Ellen G. White as well. He attended Healdsburg College, the predecessor of Pacific Union College, the school he would send his eldest sons Kazuo and Nobuo to in the late 1920s. The Adventist Church’s emphasis on the health message guided Tatsuguchi’s career plans, and he moved from Healdsburg back to San Francisco to train as a dentist at the College of Physicians and Surgeons, graduating in 1902 with a dentistry degree.⁵ In 1901, Tatsuguchi worked for the Adventist Church in Fresno, California, where along with Chinese physician Dr. Law Keem, he started the Fresno Sanitarium, an institution that promoted the Adventist health message, particularly to Japanese patients.⁶ Tatsuguchi continued his “missionary work” the following year in San Francisco, where he worked toward a degree in “medical studies” while recruiting converts for the Church and served as a delegate representing San Francisco at the 1903 Adventist district conference.⁷

Creation of Hiroshima Church and Work in Japan

Shuichi Tatsuguchi moved to Hiroshima around 1904 and worked with his wife Sadako to spread Adventism in the region.⁸ Tatsuguchi influenced both Japanese and foreigners with his Seventh-day Adventist theology and his self-supported medical evangelism,⁹ and he did so from one of Japan’s major military centers. Foreign missionaries’ hopes to establish Adventist churches in Hiroshima and Nagasaki rested in part on the work of Tatsuguchi and his wife, and that of Hiizu (Hide) Kuniya, who traveled to Nagasaki to conduct baptisms.¹⁰ The Russo-Japanese War (1904-1905) compounded the challenges facing Christian missionaries of all faiths in Hiroshima, and the city experienced the upheavals brought by the conflict. Adventists recognized Hiroshima as “an important center,” reporting that the Tatsuguchis’ evangelism had convinced three people to begin to keep the Sabbath.¹¹ Tatsuguchi’s status as Hiroshima’s only “foreign trained dentist” meant his patients included “the most prominent” Japanese along with the city’s “foreign residents.” Of the thirty foreigners, most were missionaries and practically all of them were Tatsuguchi’s patients.

Tatsuguchi was uniquely positioned to promote Adventism and its health message to Hiroshima’s elite, to missionaries from other denominations, and to the regular citizenry. By 1908, his weekly “health lectures for the teachers in the higher normal school” promoted Adventism beyond Hiroshima’s elite circles. Tatsuguchi had trained “several young men” in dentistry, including three who became Adventist.¹² Hiroshima’s prominence as a populous city made it a significant focus of Adventist missionaries, such as F. W. Field, who planned “an aggressive missionary campaign” in 1909 based on the Tatsuguchis’ work there.¹³

Tatsuguchi remained central to the Adventist message in Hiroshima throughout the Great War. According to a 1915 report for the Asiatic Division, “Dr. Tatsuguchi is working hard to win souls, leaving his business in his younger brother’s hands a good part.”¹⁴ Missionary A. N. Anderson credited him with the creation of Hiroshima’s Seventh-day Adventist church, dedicated on February 5, 1917: “The building of this handsome little edifice is due to one of the members, Dr. [Shuichi] Tatsuguchi, who advanced practically all the funds.”¹⁵ Church records placed the mission’s headquarters at 15 Motoimachi [sic], Hiroshima; Moto-machi was the military center of Hiroshima, including Otekuruwa’s Western Drill Ground (next to the church), and the city’s castle.¹⁶ The new Adventist church was located in the heart of the city’s activities in an increasingly militaristic, expansionistic Japan. American missionary B. P. Hoffman, who had attended the Hiroshima church’s dedication and was a friend of the Tatsuguchis, described the church the dentist had created as “a light for the rest of the island west and south of Kobe.”¹⁷ Nor was the church in Hiroshima Tatsuguchi’s only building effort on behalf of his church: he contributed 20,000 yen to construct the Tokyo Sanitarium and Hospital in 1928—the same hospital that employed his son Nobuo a decade later.¹⁸

While Shuichi Tatsuguchi labored to advance the Adventist mission publicly in Hiroshima, his family’s home life also reflected the faith’s tenets. Sadako Tatsuguchi translated Ellen G. White’s Ministry of Healing and other works published by the Church into Japanese, which she used in the Bible studies she hosted for college women. Sadako “work[ed] untiringly for the upbuilding of the company of believers”¹⁹ and “[gave] much time to work for the women” in Hiroshima.²⁰ The family’s faith threated the educational goals Shuichi and Sadako had for their three daughters and three sons. The Tatsuguchis planned for their eldest son Kazuo to attend grammar school at the Higher Normal School. Japanese law mandated “six days’ attendance each week”—Monday through Saturday—with only some days off for national celebrations. Warned that no exceptions existed, Tatsuguchi nevertheless appealed to the school’s principal after Kazuo missed two Sabbaths in a row. The principal agreed to grant an exception.²¹ The Tatsuguchis’ second son, Nobuo, also skipped the required Saturday attendance.²²

Death and Legacy

Sadako Tatsuguchi died in December 1931, and Shuichi Tatsuguchi passed away five weeks later on January 25, 1932. The “death of these two faithful members [was] a real loss to [the Adventist Church’s] work” in Japan. The Tatsuguchis’ six children survived them and acutely felt the loss of their parents. Eldest son Kazuo was home in Hiroshima, working “to keep the home and arrange for the children to live together;” second son Nobuo (Paul) was at Pacific Union College finishing his degree, and the youngest Tatsuguchi child was only eight years old.²³

Shuichi Tatsuguchi’s legacy stretched well beyond his identity as “one of the first” Japanese converts to Adventism.²⁴ The Imperial Japanese Army drafted Tatsuguchi’s son Nobuo after he returned to Japan as a missionary physician working for the Tokyo Sanitarium; he was shot and killed on Attu by the United States military in May 1943. On September 30, 1943, Japanese authorities, using the force of the Peace Preservation Law, arrested forty-two Adventist leaders living in territory that stretched from Japan to Taiwan and Palau. They spent between six months and two years in prison; four died due to the horrific conditions of their detention. Adventist church activity throughout Japan ended on that day, including at the Tokyo Sanitarium and Hospital, which the Japanese government took over.²⁵ Japanese militarists labeled Tatsuguchi’s Hiroshima Adventist Church “a hazard to some of their military installations” ²⁶ and at some point “early in the [Asia-Pacific War]” tore it down.²⁷

Hiroshima’s destruction by the United States’s atomic bomb on August 6, 1945, immediately raised major concerns for the fate of the city’s Adventists—the community “seventy or eighty members” built by Tatsuguchi. “As persecution came, the members scattered into the country,” V. T. Armstrong narrated in June 1946, “and when the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima, as far as we know, not one Seventh-day Adventist loyal to the church lost his life in that disaster.”²⁸ Adventists worshiped in homes until nearly the end of the American Occupation, when they dedicated Hiroshima’s new Adventist church on September 9, 1951. The new property included space for a future clinic, an indication of the persistent legacy of medical evangelism created by Shuichi Tatsuguchi. V. T. Armstrong commemorated the Tatsuguchis’ achievements: “Through the years the Hiroshima church members have been active in missionary work and one of the strongest churches in the Japan Union. We rejoice that they once again have a suitable church home.”²⁹ The three decades of perseverance by Shuichi and Sadako Tatsuguchi undoubtedly made the church’ post-war rebirth possible.

Sources

Anderson, A. N. “A New Church at Hiroshima, Japan.” Asiatic Division Mission News, March 1917.

Anderson, A. N. “A New Church at Hiroshima, Japan.” Asiatic Division Mission News, March 1917.

Armstrong, V. T. “Hiroshima Church Dedication.” Far Eastern Division Outlook, November 1951.

Armstrong, V. T. “News Notes from Japan.” Far Eastern Division Outlook, May 1932.

Benson, H. F. Writing under the column “The Field Work” from Hiroshima. ARH, December 31, 1908.

"Dental and Medical Students are Graduated: Annual Commencement Exercises of the California Medical and San Francisco Dental Colleges.” San Francisco Call and Post, May 21, 1902. Accessed September 25, 2024. Newspapers.com.

“An Evening with the Far Eastern Division.” ARH, June 20, 1946.

Field, F. W. “Japan.” Published in the column “The Field Work.” ARH, July 5, 1906.

Field, F. W. “Japan.” Published in the column “The Field Work.” ARH, July 2, 1909.

“Field Notes.” ARH, April 5, 1906.

Hoffman, B. P. “The Japan Mission: A Survey.” North Pacific Union Gleaner, December 6, 1917.

“Items.” The Missionary Worker, February 17, 1904.

Kuniya, H. “Worshipers of Buddha Forsake Their Idols.” Asiatic Division Mission News, November 15, 1915.

"Local Conference Now in Session.” San Francisco Chronicle, April 14, 1903. Accessed September 25, 2024. Newspapers.com.

Miyake, James. “From James Masamichi Miyake.” Alumni Journal: School of Medicine of Loma Linda University, March-April 1993.

Parlin, E. E. “An Item from Japan,” Pacific Union Recorder, April 10, 1902.

Ravina, Mark. To Stand with the Nations of the World: Japan’s Meiji Restoration in World History. New York: Oxford University Press, 2017.

Richards, B. F. “Among the Churches.” Pacific Union Recorder, September 26, 1901.

Seventh-day Adventist Yearbook. Takoma Park, Washington, D.C.: Review and Herald Publishing Association, 1920-1924.

Shinmyo, Tadaomi. “A History of the Seventh-Day Adventist Church in Japan from 1896-1950.” MA thesis, Philippine Union College, 1972.

Weaks, C. E. “Itinerating in the East Asian Union Conference.” Australasian Record, December 17, 1917.

Weaks, Mrs. C. E. “Women’s Work in the East Asia Union.” Asiatic Division Outlook, November 1, 1917.

Notes

1. V. T. Armstrong, “News Notes from Japan,” Far Eastern Division Outlook, May 1932, 8.↩

2. Mark Ravina, To Stand with the Nations of the World: Japan’s Meiji Restoration in World History (New York: Oxford University Press, 2017), 15.↩

3. James Miyake, “From James Masamichi Miyake,” Alumni Journal: School of Medicine of Loma Linda University, March-April 1993, 22.↩

4. “S. Tatsuguchi seeks cooking or waiting position,” San Francisco Chronicle, August 23, 1896, 30, accessed September 25, 2024, Newspapers.com.↩

5. James Miyake, “From James Masamichi Miyake,” Alumni Journal: School of Medicine of Loma Linda University, March-April 1993, 22; "Dental and Medical Students are Graduated: Annual Commencement Exercises of the California Medical and San Francisco Dental Colleges,” San Francisco Call and Post, May 21, 1902, 9, accessed September 25, 2024, Newspapers.com. The article lists Tatsuguchi’s name as Shuichi Ernest, and Adventist publications frequently listed him as S.E. Tatsuguchi.↩

6. B. F. Richards, “Among the Churches,” Pacific Union Recorder, September 26, 1901, 6. Though Richards lists Keem’s first name as Charlie here, his first name was Law, according to V. T. Armstrong. See Armstrong, “News Notes from Japan,” Far Eastern Division Outlook, May 1932, 8.↩

7. E. E. Parlin, “An Item from Japan,” Pacific Union Recorder, April 10, 1902, 5; "Local Conference Now in Session,” San Francisco Chronicle, April 14, 1903, accessed September 25, 2024, Newspapers.com.↩

8. Tadaomi Shinmyo, “A History of the Seventh-Day Adventist Church in Japan from 1896-1950” (MA thesis, Philippine Union College, 1972), 76.↩

9. “Items,” The Missionary Worker, February 17, 1904, 28.↩

10. “Field Notes,” ARH, April 5, 1906, 19.↩

11. F. W. Field, “Japan,” published in the column “The Field Work,” ARH, July 5, 1906, 14.↩

12. H. F. Benson, writing under the column “The Field Work” from Hiroshima, ARH, December 31, 1908, 15.↩

13. F. W. Field, “Japan,” published in the column “The Field Work,” ARH, July 2, 1909, 13.↩

14. H. Kuniya, “Worshipers of Buddha Forsake Their Idols,” Asiatic Division Mission News, November 15, 1915, 3. Hoffman contributed an article on the Church’s work in Kobe for this same edition.↩

15. A. N. Anderson, “A New Church at Hiroshima, Japan,” Asiatic Division Mission News, March 1917, 1.↩

16. See Seventh-day Adventist Yearbook 1920-1924, such as the 1920 edition, that located the Chukogu Mission’s headquarters and minister T. Kobayashi at 15 Motoimachi, Hiroshima, Japan. Seventh-day Adventist Yearbook (Takoma Park, Washington, D.C.: Review and Herald Publishing Association, 1920), 163. See “The Heart of the Military City—3” from the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum’s virtual museum exhibit, accessed September 9, 2024, https://hpmmuseum.jp/virtual/VirtualMuseum_e/exhibit_e/exh1207_e/exh120703_e.html.↩

17. A. N. Anderson, “A New Church at Hiroshima, Japan,” Asiatic Division Mission News, March 1917, 1; B. P. Hoffman, “The Japan Mission: A Survey,” North Pacific Union Gleaner, December 6, 1917, 1.↩

18. James Miyake, “From James Masamichi Miyake,” Alumni Journal: School of Medicine of Loma Linda University March-April 1993, 22.↩

19. Mrs. C. E. Weaks, “Women’s Work in the East Asia Union,” Asiatic Division Outlook, November 1, 1917, 3.↩

20. C. E. Weaks, “Itinerating in the East Asian Union Conference,” Australasian Record, December 17, 1917, 3.↩

21. A. N. Anderson, “Triumphs of the Cross in Japan,” Asiatic Division Mission News, June 15, 1916, 2.↩

22. S. E. Tatsuguchi to Prof. W.E. Nelson, 21 November 1928, pages 1-3; Kiyohiko Kubo, “Koryo High School,” 23 March 1929, second page of unnumbered certificate. Held in Nobuo “Paul” Tatsuguchi’s school records at Pacific Union College in Angwin, California. Released from the Records Office at the author’s request on 5 February 2019.↩

23. V. T. Armstrong, “News Notes from Japan,” Far Eastern Division Outlook, May 1932, 8.↩

24. V. T. Armstrong, “News Notes from Japan,” Far Eastern Division Outlook, May 1932, 8.↩

25. Tadaomi Shinmyo, “A History of the Seventh-Day Adventist Church in Japan from 1896-1950” (MA thesis, Philippine Union College, 1972), 165, 174, 181,183-184, 188.↩

26. “An Evening with the Far Eastern Division,” ARH, June 20, 1946, 227.↩

27. V. T. Armstrong, “Hiroshima Church Dedication,” Far Eastern Division Outlook, November 1951, 3.↩

28. “An Evening with the Far Eastern Division,” ARH, June 20, 1946, 227.↩

29. V. T. Armstrong, “Hiroshima Church Dedication,” Far Eastern Division Outlook, November 1951, 3.↩