Yoko Ono
From Philosopedia
Yoko Ono Lennon (18 February 1933 - )
A Japanese artist known for her avant garde art, Ono became one of the most familiar feminine faces when she married John Lennon.
She was born in Saitama, the oldest child of Osoko Yasuda and Eisuke Ono. Her father was a member of one of the country's wealthiest banking families, and her mother sacrificed becoming a classically trained pianist to working as a banker.
During World War II, she and her family hid in an underground shelter, then fled to the countryside to beg for food. Her father became a prisoner of war, incarcerated in China.
Following the war, the family moved to Scarsdale, New York, and she attended Sarah Lawrence College. An artist, she was anything but normal, once setting fire to a painting. She divorced her first husband, composer Toshi Ichiyanagi, in 1962 after they had lived apart several years after marrying in 1956. She then married Anthony Cox, a jazz musician who allegedly tracked her down to a Japanese mental institution where she had been placed by her family following an attempted suicide. That marriage was annulled 1 March 1963, for she had neglected to finalize her divorce from Ichiyanagi, but the two remarried, then divorced on 2 February 1969. A daughter, Kyoko Chan Cox, was born on 8 August 1963.
Leaving Cox for John Lennon, she and the musician married on 20 March 1969 in Gibraltar, A son, Sean, was born 9 October 1975, Lennon's 35th birthday.
Trivia
Readily available is gossip about her relationship with Paul McCartney; her distinctive artwork; her musical career; her political activism; her discography; and other trivia.
In the New York Post (16 February 2003), reference is made to an interview Ono made during which she was asked by Jean Teeters, "Did it seem to you that, after John passed into spirit, people had kinder thoughts about you?" Ono did not question the meaning of "passed into spirit" and responded, "If he's observing from up there, I'm sure he's proud of me. It's gonna go on and on. This is what I love now, so it's great."
Some questioned why Ono, said to have been key in wording "Imagine," would not have questioned any afterlife. She has not been a member of any organized religion, and her pacifism and political views are in keeping with freethought and secularism.
