Barbara (Barbara Leonard) Reynolds

Born in Milwaukee in 1915, Barbara Leonard Reynolds became an American author, educator, and later a Quaker peace activist. She moved to Hiroshima in 1951 with her husband, Earle L. Reynolds, who was studying the effects of radiation on children who survived the atomic bombing. That experience changed the course of her life and shaped much of her writing and public work.

Reynolds became closely involved with survivors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and helped found the World Friendship Center in Hiroshima, a place for hospitality, dialogue, and peace work. She also took part in anti-nuclear activism, including peace voyages and public witness against nuclear testing, and became widely respected in Japanese and international peace movements.

Alongside her activism, she wrote books and essays drawn from travel, moral conviction, and firsthand encounters with people affected by war. She died in 1990, but she remains remembered as a warm, determined voice for peace whose life joined literature with direct action.