Princess Yuriko of Japan Dies at 101 Years Old After Recent Decline in Health

Princess Yuriko of Japan, who was the oldest member of the Japanese Imperial Family, has died at 101 years old.

Princess Yuriko — the wife of Emperor Hirohito’s brother — died at a Tokyo hospital on Friday, Nov. 15 after her health deteriorated recently, the Imperial Household Agency told CNN.

Though palace officials didn’t specify a cause of death, CNN reported that Japanese media said she died of pneumonia. Yuriko suffered a stroke and pneumonia in March of this year, but up until that point had lived a healthy life, including taking part in exercise and watching a daily fitness show on television, according to the Imperial Household Agency.

In addition to keeping her body physically fit, Yuriko also kept her mind sharp, reading multiple newspapers and magazines and watching the news — and baseball! — on TV. “On sunny days, she sat in the palace garden or was wheeled in her wheelchair,” CNN reported.

Yuriko was hospitalized after her stroke and had been in and out of intensive care since then. Her overall condition deteriorated over the past week, the Imperial Household Agency said.

The princess’ life began in 1923, when she was born an aristocrat. She married Prince Mikasa — the younger brother of Hirohito and the uncle of Japan’s current Emperor Naruhito — at age 18, just before the beginning of World War II. She would later recount living in a shelter with her husband and their baby daughter after their home was burned down in the U.S. fire bombings of Tokyo as the war came to an end in 1945.

Mikasa and Yuriko were parents to five children, and Yuriko outlived her husband and all three of their sons, according to CNN. She served the royal family and also took part in philanthropic activities during her public life.

On a larger scale, the royal’s death brings Japan’s “rapidly dwindling” Imperial family to just 16 people, CNN reported, “as the country faces the dilemma of how to maintain the royal family while conservatives in the governing party insist on retaining male-only succession.”

Japan’s 1947 Imperial House Law allows only males to take the Japanese throne, and forces female royal family members who marry commoners to lose their royal status, as has happened recently with Princess Ayako and Princess Mako.

Currently, the youngest male member of the Imperial family, Prince Hisahito — the nephew of Emperor Naruhito — is the family’s last heir apparent, which poses a problem for a royal family that doesn’t allow empresses. “The government is debating how to keep succession stable without relying on women,” CNN reported.

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In June, King Charles and Queen Camilla hosted Emperor Naruhito and his wife, Empress Masako, for a state visit. As the King continued to ease back into public duty after announcing his cancer diagnosis in February, Prince William greeted the couple upon their arrival in the U.K., but without Kate Middleton, as she too was largely away from public duty throughout most of this year after announcing her own cancer diagnosis in March.