Lawrence, Neal Henry, June 1, 1981

Father Neal Henry Lawrence (January 22 1908 - November 3, 2004), born in Clarksville, Tennessee, was a naval officer, diplomat, monk, and scholar. He received his BA in English from Harvard College in 1929. After graduation, he worked for the Lever Brothers Company, remaining with them for 15 years. He joined the Navy in 1943 and attended the Military Government School at Columbia University. He went to Japan and participated in the siege of Okinawa. During the Occupation, he became the Director of the Department of Economic Affairs for General Headquarters. Lawrence left Japan in August 1946 to get a Master’s degree in Public Law and Government from Columbia, which he obtained in 1947. Soon after, he joined the State Department and was sent to Tokyo with the Diplomatic Section under the Supreme Commander of the Allied Powers (SCAP). He then joined the Foreign Service Section of U.S. Information Service, where he remained until 1951. During his work in diplomacy, he became interested in becoming a Benedictine monk. He attended St. Johns Abbey in 1954 to study, becoming a Benedictine monk in 1955. In 1960, he was ordained and returned to Japan for a mission. He was Associate Pastor of St. Anselm's Parish from 1966 to 1999 and taught at various educational institutions. Father Lawrence is regarded as a pioneer in popularizing tanka poetry in English. For his work, he was awarded the Order of the Rising Sun by the Japanese government in 1993. He remained in Japan until his death at the age of 96.