This year we are reflecting on the life of our dear father, Dr. Thomas Abe de Figueiredo, who passed away 35 years ago on March 27, 1991 in Albany, California. A distinguished lawyer who was also related to the former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, Harold Macmillan, Dr. Thomas had a long and varied career. Born to a Portuguese father and Japanese mother in 1901, in Yokohama, Japan, Dr. Thomas graduated from Keio University in Japan, followed by a Doctorate in Law from the Sorbonne in Paris, France. Having passed the rigorous Japanese law board exams at near the top his class, Dr. Thomas went on to become one of the youngest judges ever appointed in Japan. He later practiced law in China for many years before World War II, returning to Japan in 1949 to continue his law career. Dr. Thomas, a foreigner in Japan, was nonetheless able to become a successful and prominent attorney, one of the few foreigners then fully qualified to practice law in Japan's restrictive legal system. Over the years, his diverse clientele included such notable personalities as Miki Sawada, granddaughter of the founder of the Mitsubishi Conglomerate, Nobel Prize winner, Pearl Buck, and Josephine Baker, the Black American entertainer. As the attorney for Miki Sawada, founder of the Elizabeth Saunder's Home for Adopted Children in Japan, Dr. Thomas handled the legal work for the adoption of 750 orphans of Japanese and mixed blood parentage, most of whom now live in the U.S. When his daughter, Lisa, then a young girl, asked him why he handled so many adoptions, he replied by quoting from a poem by Emily Dickinson, who he said inspired him: "If I can stop one heart from breaking, I shall not live in vain. If I can ease one life the aching or cool one pain. Or help one fainting robin unto his nest again I shall not live in vain." Retiring from the practice of law in the late 1970s, Dr. Thomas and his wife, Luisa, moved to California to be close to their children. On the 35th anniversary of his death may he rest in peace
