Princess Yuriko, who had been experiencing deteriorating health since last week, died on Friday due to pneumonia. At 101 years old, she was the oldest living member of the imperial family.
Princess Yuriko had been hospitalized since March 3 at St. Luke’s International Hospital in Tokyo’s Chuo Ward due to a stroke and pneumonia.
After regaining some mobility in her right limbs and showing improvement in her pneumonia symptoms, she was transferred out of the intensive care unit to a general ward after about 10 days, where she continued her recovery.
However, in mid-August, she developed mild pneumonia symptoms again and was readmitted to an intensive care unit for over three weeks. She later returned to a general ward to continue recuperating.
Princess Yuriko | Jiji
On Nov. 8, the Imperial Household Agency announced that her overall condition was deteriorating. According to sources, her health further worsened, eventually leading to her death.
Born in 1923 to one of the elite families at the time, she had married into the imperial family at age 18 when she married Prince Mikasa, the younger brother of late former Emperor Hirohito — posthumously known as Emperor Showa — and is the great-aunt of the current emperor, Emperor Naruhito.
She had three sons and two daughters, but were predeceased by both her husband and three sons in 2016, 2002, 2012 and 2014 respectively.
Being one of the few imperial family members that were alive before and during WWII when they still ruled over the nation, she gave birth and raised her oldest daughter during the war.
In the autobiography of her late husband Prince Mikasa, Princess Yuriko recounts her experience during the war where she was forced into living in an air raid shelter with her then-1-year-old daughter after their houses were burned down.
„The young people were saying that the war should be continued while Prince Mikasa kept saying that it was better to end it now,” she recalled. “It was such a tense, heated argument and I thought pistols were about to fly.”
After the war, through the family’s hardships and financial instability, Princess Yuriko worked hard to make a home and raise her five children, and support her husband who was working as a researcher of Ancient Near East studies.
In his autobiography, Prince Mikasa notes that it was his wife “who has helped me in the shadows and in the sun for the past 70 years.”
Members of the imperial family had visited her throughout the week to bid their final goodbyes, including her granddaughters, Princess Yoko and Princess Akiko, as well as her daughter-in-law Princess Hisako.