At the age of seventeen and upon graduation, Teddy took his first ride on the railroad from Orange, VA to Blacksburg, VA to sign up for the ROTC in 1944. Soon after his preliminary orientation, an officer came to recruit anyone who was interested in Japanese language training. He immediately signed up and was sent to Yale University for preliminary testing and was then posted to the Army Language Training Center at the University of Minnesota. He underwent basic training at the age of eighteen in 1945. Then in August, the War was over. In January, at the age of nineteen, he arrived at Zama Air Station in Japan to report for duty with the Occupation Forces. They travelled through pure desolation by Jeep and boarded a train at the shell of Tokyo Station destined for Kobe.

This experience planted the seeds of peace, love, compassion, and empathy as the driving forces for the remainder of his life. He decided to enter the ministry while finishing his undergraduate studies at Randolph Macon College back in Ashland, VA. It was then off to New York City for Union Theological Seminary to earn a Master of Divinity. During this time he decided he wanted to return to Japan to serve as a missionary. At a summer camp for children of Eastern European refugees, inner-city youth, and displaced Japanese American farm workers, he met the love of his life, Margaret Matilda Hoover. They became engaged, even though they came from opposite sides of the Civil War (yes, this was an actual issue at the time). In 1953, he went on to Tokyo to start his career as a missionary and professor at Aoyama Gakuin University. A year later, in 1954, Margaret joined him, after finishing her studies and preparations for becoming an English instructor at the Aoyama Gakuin Women's Junior College. Soon after she arrived, they were united in marriage at Aoyama Gakuin University. Their Mission was sponsored and funded by the Virginia Conference of the United Methodist Church. Margaret's untimely death in 1979 defined much that came after. After serving as a missionary in Japan for 41 years, he moved back home in 1994 and was able to spend time supporting Oak Grove United Methodist Church and the local community. Alas, this man who was always there for all of us is now reunited with his beloved Margaret.

He is survived by his four children: Frederick, Thomas, Theodore, Jr., and Heidi, who each started their lives as foreign children in Tokyo. As well as his 9 grandchildren and 6 great-grandchildren.

He was preceded in death by his wife, Margaret Matilda (Hoover) Kitchen, his parents, Thomas Marvin Kitchen and Mary Frances (Aylor) Kitchen, and his brother, Everett Ross Kitchen.

His funeral service will be held at Oak Grove Church in Madison, VA on Friday, May 23 at 11:30 AM. He will be interred beside his wife Margaret in the church cemetery, where his name has been engraved since 1979.

In lieu of flowers please donate to United Methodist Committee on Relief (UMCOR)

https://umcmission.org/ways-to-give/