SENATE MEMORIAL 50

49th legislature - STATE OF NEW MEXICO - first session, 2009

INTRODUCED BY

Sue Wilson Beffort

A MEMORIAL

COMMEMORATING THE LIFE OF MARY ANN VAUGHN AND DECLARING APRIL 17, 2009 "MARY ANN VAUGHN DAY".

     WHEREAS, Mary Ann Vaughn is descended from a proud line of New Mexicans with roots spanning four decades in the state and more than nine generations in the nation; and

     WHEREAS, Mary Ann Vaughn's descendants include Jacob Meisser, who fought for Pennsylvania during the Revolutionary War; and

     WHEREAS, Mary Ann Vaughn was born in Yokohama, Japan, on April 17, 1949, and she was the only daughter of James A. Vaughn of New Mexico and Vivienne Joy Wilson; and

     WHEREAS, Vivienne Wilson and Mary Ann Vaughn were not permitted to immigrate to the United States due to Vivienne's Swedish and Mary Ann's Japanese ancestry; and

     WHEREAS, James Vaughn appealed to Senator Patrick McCarren of Nevada to introduce private legislation in the United States congress to allow the immigration of Vivienne and Mary Ann; and

     WHEREAS, on August 5, 1950, congress passed a private bill permitting Vivienne Wilson and Mary Ann Vaughn to immigrate to the United States; and

     WHEREAS, on the very day her immigration rights were secured, Vivienne Wilson died in Tokyo, Japan, of tuberculosis; and

     WHEREAS, the infant, Mary Ann, was kidnapped by her nanny and held incommunicado in the slums of Yokohama, Japan, and was raised there; and

     WHEREAS, the family of Vivienne Wilson discovered Mary Ann's whereabouts and sought her custody and extradition to Sweden, their country of residence; and

     WHEREAS, the case of Lagerfelt v. Yamaguchi was brought on Mary Ann's behalf in the name of the king of Sweden in the Tokyo high court in 1956; and

     WHEREAS, upon prevailing in the lawsuit, Mary Ann remained in the custody of the Swedish ambassador to Japan and attended the American school in Japan, graduating in the 1960s; and

     WHEREAS, Mary Ann's New Mexico grandparents, Osmar Andrew and Hester Ruby Vaughn of Questa, sought tirelessly to locate her, but to no avail; and

     WHEREAS, Mary Ann Vaughn, now known as Mrs. Marianne Kuroda, also sought tirelessly to locate her family of origin in the United States; and

     WHEREAS, after fifty-four years, she located her family of origin from an obituary of her father in the Albuquerque Journal; and

     WHEREAS, Mrs. Kuroda has finally been reunited with her New Mexico family and roots, and the New Mexico and Tokyo branches of the Vaughn family have now grown together;

     NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED BY THE SENATE OF THE STATE OF NEW MEXICO that the life of Mary Ann Vaughn be commemorated and that April 17, 2009 be declared "Mary Ann Vaughn Day" in honor of her sixtieth birthday; and

     BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that copies of this memorial be transmitted to Mrs. Marianne Wilson Kuroda (Mary Ann Vaughn) of Kashiwa, Japan, and Mr. Akira Honda, the honorable mayor of Kashiwa, Japan.

- 3 -