Remembering Bob Curry
Posted: Tuesday, April 15, 2008 7:56 AM by Dan Fleschner
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Live from Studio 1A
It was with great sadness that we learned Ann Curry's father, Bob Curry, passed away on Sunday after a battle with cancer.
This morning, Matt and Meredith paid tribute to Mr. Curry. WATCH VIDEO
You can also read this lovely piece that Ann wrote about her father last year, when she reported for the "Trading Places" series on NBC Nightly News.
Ann has told the great story of how her parents met and married, and it bears repeating. Mr. Curry was in the U.S. Navy for 20 years, and while stationed in Japan after World War II, he met a ticket taker on a street car. The 6-foot-3 American saw the 4-foot-11 Japanese woman three times before he mustered the courage to ask her out.
Bob and Hiroe soon fell in love, but under U.S. military rules, American servicemen were not permitted to marry Japanese women. And in 1950, he was sent back to the States. They would not see each other for two years, and when Mr. Curry finally returned to Japan, Hiroe was stricken with a serious case of tuberculosis.
Doctors said the illness might kill her, and Hiroe underwent an operation in which most of one of her lungs was removed. For six months, Bob helped nurse Hiroe back to health, and with the removal of the prohbition against American G.I.s marrying Japanese women, they wed -- in the face of racism -- in 1953.
They would later move to the U.S. and have five children, remaining married for 53 years before Hiroe's death.
Mr. Curry will certainly be missed, and if you have a message for Ann and her family, feel free to post in the comments section below.
