変わり続ける風景：西町での四十年
西町渉外開発室
中山 真由美 (西町1990年度生)
The Internationalist Spring/Summer 2022 Vol. 68
(English translation follows.)
堀田（磯部）惠子（以下、磯部さん）さんは今学年度をもって、40年もの西町勤務を終え、定年退職されます。「どなた？」って一部の方は思われるかもしれませんが、二年前に定年退職された堀田さんの奥様、と説明すれば「あっ！」っとなる方も多いかもしれません。それだけではなく、磯部さんは1980年代から1990年代には西町に通っていた同窓生の皆さんのTuition Invoiceを発行していた方なのです。9人の校長先生を経た磯部さんの西町での40年を振り返ってもらいました。
今回は私が僭越ながら磯部さんにインタビューをさせて頂きました。私が西町に入学した二年後に西町でのお仕事をスタートした磯部さん。当時の私の印象は、「ロングヘアーの綺麗なお姉さん」でした。まさかその時の「綺麗なお姉さん」と三十年後に同僚としてまた西町で再会するなんて当時の私は夢にも思わなかったでしょう。今でも仕事中に会話していると、ふと気が緩んだ時に、「真由美ちゃん」と呼ばれる事があり、そんな時は二人の周りだけ1980年代に一瞬で引き戻される気がして、妙にくすぐったい感じになります。現在はとてもお似合いなショートカットになった磯部さんは1982年の8月に入社。当時の事務長と磯部さんの共通のお友達の方に「西町で英語の話せる会計の仕事が出来る人を探しているの」と言われ、元々会計の仕事に携わっていたこともあり、西町に紹介されたそうです。松方先生との入社面接の時には、校長室で磯部さんが語学留学で通っていたイギリスの学校と西町の雰囲気がよく似ている、というような話で盛り上がったそう。松方先生の印象は、皆さんに分け隔てなく平等な方で、人から聞いた話によると、松方先生は趣味も特に無く、生徒が大好きで、生徒ファーストな方だったそうです。学校が創立された頃はチャリティーの為にジープを自ら運転するような方で、生涯を教育に捧げられた方、と言っても過言ではないような方だったそうです。最初はAccounting Clerk (会計係) として西町でスタートし、1994年に今の人事課に配属される直前は、2年程Chief Accountant (会計主任) のアシスタントとしても務めていました。
40年とはかなり長い年月です。その40年の間に、磯部さんは同僚だった堀田一彦さんと結婚し、生徒にお茶の作法を教えたりしました。もちろん、それ以外の数々の事があったと思います。「1982年の新入社員全員で松方先生と一緒に、清里にあるKEEPというロッジ施設と六本木にあったしゃぶしゃぶのお店に行った時の事を今でも凄く良く覚えているのよ」、とおっしゃいます。西町の職員で良かったな！と思うところは働きやすかった事や一緒に働いた素敵な方々、そして何よりも休暇が長い事でした。磯部さんの住んでいた下町では三社祭が毎年初夏に開催され、そのお祭りにも同僚の先生方が何人も磯部さんの案内で楽しまれたそうです。色々と変化があった西町ですが、磯部さんにとっての一番大きな変化はIT／コンピューター化でした。学校はWindowsにするかMacにするかの分岐点で、最終的にはMacを選択する事になったのですが、当時の会計関係はIBMのコンピューターでドットプリンターを使用していたとのこと。今とは全然違いますね。逆に変化が無かったと感じる部分は、学校の基本的な雰囲気や、スタッフの絆だそうです。生徒との学校内での交流はお茶の作法を教えた位であまりなく、40年もの間に有栖川公園に生徒のお花見の引率に数回行っただけでした。あまりの交流の少なさに「磯部さんは私みたいに、遠足当日の朝、突然『引率者と生徒の割合が合わないから一緒に来て！』って駆り出されなかったんですか？」と聞いみた。「無いわよ、だって、私が外に行って、スタッフ全員のお給料がちゃんと振り込み日に間に合わなかったら困るでしょ？」ってマスクをしていてもわかる様な大きな笑顔で笑いながら答えてくれました。生徒とあまり交流が無かったのに対し、意外と生徒を覚えていて、80年代の中頃から後半の生徒はよく覚えているそうです。特によく覚えているのは、シャープ兄弟で、コリンとジェイソン、そして加藤さんところのトシは可愛かったわ、と。まだ彼らが学生だった頃、学校が突然の大雪に見舞われ、磯部さんが車のタイヤに自分でチェーンを巻いていた時、「すごーい！自分でチェーン付けられるの？」ってみんなで見に来ちゃって、可愛かったわ、と微笑んでいました。堀田さんと結婚してからは、十数年程、西町のオークションで生徒たちに堀田さんの実家のベーカリーで,
バースデーパーティーセットを出展し、パン、ピザ、そしてケーキ作りを、延べ百数十名の子供たちにベーカリーで教えたりもした。趣味多彩な磯部さん、オートバイに乗ってツーリングをしたりもするみたいです。口調が柔らかい磯部さんからは想像もつかない趣味でした。毎日学校に出勤していたので、よほど退職後はあれも、これも、と予定があるかと思ったら、今は特に何も予定が無いけれど、「自由に、好きな時に旅行に行きたいですね。コロナが終わったら、ヨーロッパに行きたいわね、フランスももう三年も行っていないし…国内も海外ものんびりと空いている時に行きたいわ。」と磯部さん。海外旅行は世界各国行かれているのですが、今度は国内旅行も少しずつ増やして行きたい、と言っていました。それ以外にも今まで溜めに溜めたレシピの整理をしたり、昔撮った写真をデジタル化したりもしたいそうです。
現在の同僚で会計係の種田さんが、「とある先生が昔の惠子さんの写真を見て言った一言がとても印象的で…その一言が『チャーミング』だったんです。」と教えてくれました。私が小学生の頃から西町にいる「綺麗なお姉さん」の姿を見かけられなくなるのはとても寂しいけれど、チャーミングな磯部さん、愉快で豪快な堀田さんと一緒に海外や国内を旅行している時に是非、お会いしたいです！西町での四十年、お疲れ様でした。
Ever Changing Scenery: Forty Years at Nishimachi
Mayumi Nakayama '90
Advancement Office
The Internationalist Spring/Summer 2022 Vol. 68
Keiko (Isobe) Hotta (or “Isobe-san,” as she is known at Nishimachi) will be retiring from Nishimachi after forty years of service to the school. “Who is she?” some of you may ask, but if I tell you that she is Hotta-san’s* wife, you may say “Aha!” and know exactly whom we are talking about. You may not know Isobe-san personally, but she may know you. She worked as an accounting clerk at Nishimachi and issued all of the tuition invoices from the early 1980s through the 1990s, and knows so many of you from that period by name.
She has seen many changes at the school over the decades, and I asked her to reflect on her forty-year life at Nishimachi—and on working with nine heads of school.
I felt so humbled to be interviewing her. Isobe-san was a new addition to the business office two years after I started at Nishimachi as a student in second grade. My impression then of Isobe-san was that of a “very pretty lady with long hair.” I would never have imagined that thirty years later I would be working with that very same pretty lady with the long hair. Sometimes when we talk about work at the office, she will unconsciously call me “Mayumi-chan,” as if I were still that young girl. That takes me right back to the 1980s, and gives me this tingly and nostalgic feeling.
Isobe-san, who now sports a short bob (which suits her very much), started working at Nishimachi in August 1982. Her friend of a friend knew someone who worked at Nishimachi and mentioned that Nishimachi was looking for an accounting clerk who could speak English. Having had accounting experience and finding herself ready for new opportunities, Isobe-san was recommended for the job. She was interviewed by Miss Matsukata, and they had a wonderful conversation about Nishimachi’s similarity to the school in England where Isobe-san had done her English-language studies. Miss Matsukata impressed her as someone who was fair to all, and, from what Isobe-san heard from others, whose life revolved around the school; students came first and foremost. When the school was first founded, Miss Matsukata drove a jeep, and she feels that she was a person who devoted her entire life to education.
Isobe-san started out as an accounting clerk, but after several years moved up and became assistant to the chief accountant for two years before assuming her current position with human resources.
Forty years is a very long time. Over the years Isobe-san met and married Kazuhiko Hotta, a Nishimachi colleague, and taught Japanese tea ceremony when the students learned in class about it.
She has so many memories. “In 1982, all new hires spent some time with Miss Matsukata at KEEP (the Kiyosato Educational Experiment Project) in the town of Kiyosato in Nagano prefecture, where we bonded. Miss Matsukata also had a welcome dinner at a shabu-shabu restaurant in Roppongi for us. I still remember all that so vividly,” says Isobe-san. She was happy with her job at Nishimachi from the start. There was the congenial work environment and her wonderful colleagues (with whom she often socialized, not to mention the long breaks.
Although there have been many changes at Nishimachi, Isobe-san thinks the most significant development has been computerization of the school. When she first started working, the school had reached a fork in the road and was debating whether to go with Windows or Mac. Ultimately, Nishimachi became a “Mac school.” IBM computers were used initially for accounting matters, and reports were printed on dot-printers. What a change! On the other hand, the basic ambiance of the school and the strong bond among staff members has remained unchanged over the years.
Because of the nature of her job, Isobe-san’s interaction with the students on campus was very limited, and one of the only opportunities she had to meet them was in her Japanese tea-ceremony classes. She chaperoned students to Arisugawa Park a few times for cherry-blossom viewing, but that was it. I was surprised and asked, “But didn’t you get pulled out of your office occasionally to chaperone a field trip in cases where a parent hadn’t shown up and the adult-to-student ratio was off?” Isobe-san replied with a big grin and a laugh (from under her mask), “Of course not! If I were to have gone out for the whole day, what would have happened to the paychecks that had to get to the bank? Wouldn’t that be a bigger problem?”
Despite that, she does remember some students from the eighties and the nineties. She specifically mentioned Colin and Jason Sharp and Toshi Katoh. Isobe-san smiles as she recalls a snowy day long ago. She was putting chains on her tires for the drive home, and some boys came by to watch. Seemingly, they were very impressed. “Wow! You can put the chains on by yourself?”
After Isobe-san and Hotta-san were married, they would auction off a birthday baking experience at Hotta-san’s parents’ bakery to benefit the annual Nishimachi auction (now gala). They did this for a little over ten years, and it was always a big auction hit. The children of the parents who had the winning bid went to the bakery and were able to try their hand at making bread, pizza, and cake.
I was in utter shock when I learned that, in her free time, multitalented Isobe-san toured Japan on a motorcycle. A motorcycle! I could not picture this soft-spoken, petite little lady behind the wheel of a big bike tooling along the highway!
Isobe-san has been coming to school, and been busy, every day for the last forty years, so I was sure that she had many things planned for after retirement. To my surprise, she said, “I don't have any plans, but I do want to travel again, to go to Europe, and to France in particular. I haven’t been there in three years. I want to be able to travel in the off-season when the sights aren’t so busy.” Another thing she would like to do is sort through the recipes she has been collecting for years and digitize old photos.
Taneda-san, who is a colleague of Isobe-san’s from the business office, remembered one of the teachers describing Keiko-san as “charming” after seeing an old photo of her, and that one word stays with her. And with me I will miss being called ‘Mayumi-chan’ on occasion, and seeing the “very pretty lady” that I knew from my elementary school days in the office. I hope to run into the charming Isobe-san and her splendid and cheerful husband, Hotta-san, in the not-too-distant future, when they’re not too busy with their travels. Thank you for your forty years, Keiko-san!
*Hotta-san, whom many of you may remember, served as Nishimachi’s Community Liaison, or ski and Kazuno organizer for twenty-seven years. He retired two years ago.