World War II Survivor Mina Lord's Final Expenses

Minako Lord, née Saitoh, was born Friday, April 28th, 1933 and passed away peacefully in her bed on Monday, November 22nd, 2021 at 5:30 pm at the age of 88. Mina Lord was a hero.

 

In every sense of the word. Not just the domestic hero, though she was that too and is survived by an adoring daughter, dedicated sister, loving grandchildren, and six great-grandchildren of whom she was very proud. Nor was she just the working class hero, though to provide for her family she diligently held down blue-collar jobs her entire life. Mina was, first and foremost, the kind of hero who saved lives and changed the world for the better.

 

Raised in Japan during the Second World War, Mina was present and front-seat for the grossest atrocities ever committed by man on the greatest scale ever known.

 

Her father, Tadashi Saitoh, was of a Samurai family and had become an anti-war journalist representing the voice of the Japanese common-people in the face of Empirical governance. Mina inherited his talent for language and love for dogs. Tadashi married a woman from a common family, Mina’s mother, Sei Saitoh.

 

As the cities became too dangerous to live in, Mina, her younger sisters; Na-chan and Hiroko, and her younger brothers; Masayoshi, Masamichi, baby Masahisa, were sent to the countryside to live with their grandparents where there was food if they worked hard to farm it and, most importantly, relative safety.

 

Regardless, the war took what seems tenfold its toll, and despite losing her mother to the war and then her baby brother the very next day, Mina carried on strong. When children on their way to school began to become “collateral damage” to US air raids, she began leading the local children on-foot to school for miles and miles over densely-wooded mountains every day. Whenever she wasn’t in school, her grandmother sent her on her bicycle into Tokyo to smuggle supplies to friends, family, and at great risk to her own personal well-being, American POWs trapped in the city without food, water, or medical support.

 

By the time she came of age, she had survived an unfathomable amount tragedy and grief. The war defined her no-nonsense outlook on life, her short (even for a Japanese woman) stature due to malnutrition during her teenage years, and the high esteem she held for friends and family. There was nothing more important to her.

 

As a young woman, Mina worked at Oppama, a U.S. Naval base near Yokosuka, Japan, ordering airplane parts and as a loss prevention officer in the Commissary, where she would meet her future husband, future MCPO William Lord, who would serve in the Vietnam and Korean wars with Mina’s devoted matrimonial support.

 

Mina and Bill traveled the world together. They moved from Yokosuka, Japan to Chicago, IL, close to the Ozarks where he had grown up. Their only daughter, AnnaMarie, was born there and subsequently spoiled rotten as they wouldn’t have had it any other way. Years later, their granddaughter, Lara, would suffer the same fate.

 

Mina then supported Bill on his military career through the state of California, then back to Japan, then the Philippines, then Italy, and then one final tour of duty in Atsugi, Japan, for Bill while Mina operated the largest “package store” in the country and was delighted to be able to regularly transport a herd of Clydesdale horses from the North of Japan to awe her enlisted patrons during events. Finally her husband retired from the US Navy and they moved back to the states, in Oxon Hill, Maryland, where they were supposed to take it easy.

 

Instead, Mina, not to be outdone by her hard-working spouse, and whilst helping to raise three young grandchildren, picked up a full-time job at an auto parts store where until well after her 85th birthday, she was marching car batteries around the store and casting shade on anyone who tried to suggest she do otherwise.

 

When she began having serious health concerns that Mina could no longer power through on sheer strength and grit alone, she finally retired, to live out the rest of her days on a sunny island off the coast of Florida with her daughter and incorrigible Shih Tzu, Chiquita.

 

It is our hope that she is now forever reunited with all the friends and family that she had loved and lost; especially her devoted husband, her kind-hearted mother, and her baby brother whose persistent smile she remembered so well and whom she missed dearly until the end.

 

Due to the current state of world affairs, we will not be having any immediate public ceremonies. We’d like to keep our tragedies (and yours) this year to a minimum.

 

Instead, we would like to celebrate her life on her birthday in April, when the weather will be nice and hopefully masks won’t be necessary. Mina loved a cook-out and we intend to do it up big and cook all her favorites. The family will provide more details in the near future.

 

If you’d like to honor her memory in the meantime, we invite you to watch the 1957 Marlon Brando/Miiko Taka film, Sayonara, which Mina and Bill considered emblematic of their marriage. It’s the story of a Japanese dancer who falls in love with an American soldier during the Korean War. It’s an epic love story, but even movie magic will seem ordinary and small in comparison to Mina’s story.

Rest In Peace.

Many thanks for your condolences from The Lord Family.