Lily Kanazawa Ivy

YORKTOWN – Lily Kanazawa Ivy, 98, of Dandy, passed away at her home Tuesday, August 26. Born in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia on August 2, 1927, Lily (born Hatsuko) was the only child of Bill Adams, a British citizen and Rin Kanazawa who had a dual Japanese and Malaysian citizenship. She moved to Japan with her mother in 1941 at the age of 13 as Japan entered World War II. She attended a Methodist high school, worked part time in the shipyards and survived many bombing raids. During long stretches of time in bunkers she began to enjoy teaching, working and taking care of the younger kids. She was on a ferry headed to a nearby island when the atomic bomb was dropped, destroying the city and the shipyard where she had been working.

She met Dick Ivy in 1948 while he was assigned in Japan as the editor/writer of the Armed Forces newspaper. In 1950 she came to the United States on a scholarship to McPherson College in Kansas and received a B.A. in sociology. She married Dick the day before she graduated. She obtained her citizenship in 1957.

Dick’s army service took them to France, and in 1959 he was transferred to Fort Eustis where he became the editor of The Wheel, the post’s newspaper. Lily started teaching as a substitute. She was hired as a second-grade teacher at the new Seaford Elementary School when it opened in 1963. She earned her masters in elementary education from William and Mary and became a visiting teacher until 1993, when visiting teachers were replaced by school social workers, and Lily retired. After six weeks, she returned to the classroom at Coventry Elementary school teaching English as a second language. The reason: she missed the kids. She retired for the second time in 2015 at 88, after 52 years of teaching.

She truly loved kids; you could watch her face just light up when a child walked into the room.

Her husband Dick passed away in 2004 just after they celebrated their 50th anniversary.

She is survived by her son, Tim and wife Carol, their son Tanner, his wife Valerie and daughter Reniya; by her daughter, Rose Cogan and husband Bill, their daughter Erin and her husband Timmy, son Michael and his wife Amy, their son William and daughter Lillian, and by her sister-in-law, Dorothy Lois DeVicq.

A private graveside service will be held for immediate family. In lieu of flowers, the family requests donations to the Alzheimer’s Association or the Martha W. Goodson Center of Williamsburg.