James Yamazaki talking in his kitchen with Think Out Loud host, Dave Miller, before sitting down for an hour-long interview.
Allison Frost / OPB
Allison Frost / OPB
Health and wellness reminders posted on 99-year-old James Yamazaki's refrigerator door.
Allison Frost / OPB
James Yamazaki explains post-WWII photographs from Nagasaki that Dave Miller looks through before the interview.
Allison Frost / OPB
Dave Miller looks through pictures from Yamazaki's personal collection.
Allison Frost / OPB
WWII veteran and retired pediatrician James Yamasaki treasures these pictures perhaps more than any other possession. The picture on the left of him and his wife Aki was taken shortly after they were married, and the photo on the right was taken more recently. Aki, Yamazaki's wife of nearly 80 years, died in 2014.
Allison Frost / OPB
The front door of James Yamasaki's home. The 99-year-old retired pediatrician and researcher lives alone in White Salmon, Washington. His daughter lives a mile away, and she and home health care workers help Yamasaki out.
James Yamazaki is one of a fast-disappearing group: veterans of World War II. He is 99 years old and lives alone with help from his daughter Caroline and home health workers. His life and career have taken him around the country to Germany in WWII and a POW camp.
After the war, he was one of the first Americans to travel to Japan to study the effects of radiation on children born shortly after the U.S. dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Yamazaki was married to his wife, Aki, for nearly 80 years, and enjoyed a long medical career in Los Angeles.
He now lives in White Salmon, Washington, near his daughter. We talk to him about his life and work this hour for the next installment of the "At Home" series.
