COMMUNITY
Obituaries
HALLAM SHORROCK JR. A former missionary to Japan and South Korea with a long career in international education, passed away in Claremont, CA, on August 8, 2018. He was 94. Hal and his first wife, Helen were among the first American missionaries allowed into Japan during the US occupation after World War II, and together they spent over two decades in Tokyo and Seoul doing relief work to help rebuild the country. Hal graduated from the University of Washington, in Seattle, WA, and following Pearl Harbor he enlisted in the US Navy and served as an ensign until 1945. During that time, he studied Japanese at the Navy’s School of Oriental Languages in Colorado. After the war, Hal studied theology at Yale Divinity School. In 1947 Hal and his wife Helen moved to Japan to assist in post war reconstruction work, and they were required to have one ton of food with them upon arrival. Their work involved high school teaching in a Christian secondary school in Tokyo, nationwide youth work, as well as international student work camps, and from there Hal went on to direct Church World Service’s extensive relief programs throughout Japan and Korea. Hal was the director for 16 years and then served as the Asia Secretary of the World Council of Churches’ Inter-church Aid & Refugee Program for two years. Hal’s service in postwar Japan was recognized in 1954 by the Emperor of Japan. In 1961, he was awarded a Public Welfare Medal by the President of South Korea. From 1963 to 1969, Hal was vice-president for financial affairs at Tokyo's International Christian University. In 1969, he became an associate director of the University of California's Education Abroad Program in Santa Barbara, CA, where he lived for over 20 years. In the late 1960s Hal was known in the American expatriate community in Tokyo as an outspoken critic of the US war in Vietnam. In 1968, he helped organize a peace demonstration of about 250 American missionaries, educators and students in front of the US Embassy in Japan.
Hal and his second wife Yasuko.
Hal and Helen Shorrock and three of their children when they lived in Shibuya-ku near the old ASIJ in Meguro. Terry ’73 is in the high chair, Karen ’66 and Tim ’69 are at the table.
Hal Shorrock in his Japan Church World Service uniform, distributing medicine after massive flooding in Kyushu in 1955.
Two years after Hal’s first wife Helen died in 2001, he married Yasuko Fukada (FF ’63–87), the daughter of a Japanese pastor in Tokyo and at that time a teacher at The American School in Japan. She passed away in 2016. Hal is survived by his five children and their families—Karen Hayes ’66 of Davis, CA; Tim Shorrock ’69 of Washington, DC; Terry Shorrock ’73 of Cranford, NJ; Michael Shorrock of San Anselmo, CA; and Judy Fletcher, of Davis, CA; and 12 grandchildren and four great-grandchildren.
THE AMBASSADOR \\ FALL/WINTER 2018
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