For Richer, for Poorer
Wainai would not have succeeded without the support of Katsu, his wife. She was resolute in the face of setbacks, bringing up their nine children despite a chronic lack of money, and pawning her favorite kimonos, comb, and pocket watch to help her husband raise money to buy the kokanee eggs. In 1905, the year the kokanee first returned to Lake Towada to spawn, the harvest in the surrounding Tohoku region failed. Despite the family’s heavy debt load, Katsu persuaded Wainai to allow the famished locals to fish freely in the lake. Regarded as the epitome of “a good wife and a smart mother,” she was featured in prewar textbooks as a model of womanly conduct. [116]