مؤلف: Maidie Hilmo

Yuiko Hammer was born in 1939 in Chiba Prefecture near Tokyo in Japan Her father was a high school English teacher. When her family home was fire bombed in 1945, the remaining family moved to Ichinomiya, a small rural castle town in Chiba Prefecture. This is where Yuiko first learned to love nature, a love that was later reignited when she moved to Canada, as shown in her poems and paintings. Even in childhood Yuiko”s Enikki, or illustrated diaries always won the gold prize each year at school. Her family returned to Tokyo where she graduated from Hakuo High School. Because her widowed mother could not afford to send her to university, Yuiko went to work for an insurance company for the next six or seven years. During this time, her scientific interests led to her becoming an amateur radio operator She was asked to be the interviewer of ham radio programs for a TV and a radio station. She held these positions for a few years. She met her first husband at the radio station. When she was 26, she enrolled in Tamagawa University and majored in Education Through her her long long-time interest in ham radio, she met her second husband, a Canadian, and then moved to Canada and settled in Port Alberni, British Columbia Now widowed, she lives in Victoria, British Columbia where she has a small arts and crafts business.