by Latrelle Ross

Created on: November 02, 2008

After doing the math, I discovered that I have been a John Lennon fan for just over half of my life. I've read everything there is to read about his life, and I've worked my love for him and what he did in his short life into numerous school papers and speeches. What I discovered throughout the years of studying his life is what an amazing person his wife, Yoko Ono is. And given the passage of time since the break up of the Beatles, I have been able to find out things about her without being bombarded with the negatively stereotyped attitudes from her most unpopular days. Lennon himself once remarked, "Anybody who claims to have some interest in me as an individual artist, or even as part of the Beatles, has absolutely misunderstood everything I ever said if they can't see why I'm with Yoko (Sheff)." She is a misunderstood artist, musician, activist, mother and widow who has come full circle and is finally able to see her work being appreciated. As she puts it, "Now people are starting to understand I was doing some work as well as being Mrs. Lennon (Cullen)."

Born in Tokyo on February 18, 1933, Yoko Ono was the first child of wealthy parents. Her mother was a socialite and her father, a former classical pianist, was a banker. He moved to San Francisco before she was born and did not meet her until the whole family moved there when she turned two. They went back to Tokyo after three years due to American opposition towards the Japanese, a result of the negative impact of Japan's military expansion ("Ono").

Once back in Japan, Ono was educated at the Gakushuin School, a very selective private school where the emperor's sons were her classmates. She was also trained vocally as an opera singer and also as a pianist. In 1945 her world changed drastically when her mother moved the family to the countryside outside Japan to avoid the allied bombings. Those that lived in Tokyo's outskirts did not like the wealthy people who had moved in and as a result, Yoko and her siblings had to beg for food to feed the family ("Ono").

When the war was over, Ono's father took over as president for a bank in New York City and her family moved to Scarsdale, NY a very wealthy area. She attended Sarah Lawrence College in New York at age eighteen and met her first husband Toschi Ichiyanagi (Pirro). Ono's family was against the marriage forcing the two to elope in 1956 ("Ono"). They settled in Greenwich Village and Ono became part of the avant-garde art scene. This turned into another experience

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