Record 6/17 |
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Description
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| Haruo "Ham" Kumasaka by Haruo "Ham" Kumasaka I came to Juneau when I was 22 years old. In 1939, Tooru Kanazawa wanted to leave his job at the Juneau Laundry so he wrote to me in Seattle and asked if I would like to take his place. Mr. Fukuyama needed more workers so I wrote to Sam Taguchi to come up and we shared a room above the Juneau Laundry. I knew Sam because we played baseball together in Seattle. I drove the laundry's brand new delivery wagon to pick up and deliver laundry and Sam operated the washing machines. Sam always sent half of his paycheck to his mother who was a widow raising her four children alone. Most of the Japanese laundry workers ran a $1 tab for all three meals at the City Cafe. You could order anything off the menu like boiled salmon belly with drawn butter and you could ask for rice. Lunchtime was pretty busy and Tanaka never wrote down the orders that Kono, the waiter, would call out, "Beef stew pair, roast pork same time." He didn't like to talk, but this laundry worker wanted to talk to him about something, maybe complain about the food. Tanaka told him, "Don't talk!" After that, the worker got mad and ate somewhere else. Sam and I played baseball for the Elks Team, but we couldn't go inside the Elks Lodge because of the color code at the time. Other teammates were Max Lewis and Molly McSpadden. Sam, Max, Ross Vories, the Nielsens (Emma, Louise, Jim and Ed) and I liked going to the Resurrection Lutheran Church. We joined the young people's group and went fishing and ice skating. I joined the National Guard in 1940 with Max reporting once a week to do drills. We became good friends because we both liked to ski. Max had come to Juneau when his sister married into the Gross family who owned the Capital Theater. On a furlough in 1941, Max and I went to Olympia to visit his father who was sculptor laureate for the state of Washington. He showed us his "Winged Victory" monument there. On December 7, 1941, I took Tom Fukuyama to the Douglas Ski trail. As we were walking across the Douglas Bridge back to Juneau, all hell broke out in town because we heard Japan bombed Pearl Harbor. Since there was no air service, people started sending boats of women and children to the states while the fathers stayed in Juneau, the Civil Defense enforced blackout at night. Soldiers were sent to Juneau to build an air strip. Because so many soldiers were stationed there, the laundries became very busy. Since Mr. Fukuyama was jailed along with the other Japanese isseis (Japanese born), he put Sam and me in charge of shutting down the laundry. We knew we were going to be evacuated, too, because of President Roosevelt's Executive Order. In April 1942, Sam and I went to the special graduation at the high school for John Tanaka. I couldn't hold back my tears. I knew how John and his friend, Skip McKinnon, got their fathers to chip in some money to help put out the 1942 school annual because there was no money otherwise. Just before we shipped out, Reverend Hillerman taught catechism to Sam and me. On Good Friday 1942, Sam and I were baptized. The whole congregation came up to us afterwards to congratulate us. After we arrived in Minidoka, I was able to rejoin my family. Sometime in 1944, I was allowed to leave Minidoka for Chicago with others to study or work. Before going there, I took a bus to visit my father in Lordsburg, New Mexico. When I got there, I was told by the guards that I could only visit for two hours, once in the morning and once in the afternoon and I had to speak English. I was sent to the post office to wait there for my father. My father was called out to go to the post office because he thought he had some mail. When he saw me, he couldn't believe his eyes. I had to say, "Haruo desu" (I'm Haruo). The guard told him, "You're supposed to speak English!" The next day, I asked to see Tanaka and Fukuyama and my father, too. But since I could only talk to two people at a time, Tanaka stood apart but kept edging closer and closer. Pretty soon, the guard let all three of us visit. I stayed in Chicago and got married to Minnie Ota. I worked for Noma, a Christmas tree light company, all my life and eventually became Vice-President. We moved back to Seattle around 2000 to be with family. Even though I'm now 94 years old, I still remember Juneau as a real adventure for me. * Haruo "Ham" Kumaska passed away on February 21, 2014 at age 95. Image Captions (Unless otherwise noted, all images courtesy of the Kumasaka family.): Haruo "Ham" Kumasaka in Juneau, 1939 Juneau Elks Team, 1940. From left to right: Stack, George, Eddie, Bill, Jack, Haruo "Ham" Kumasaka, Sam Taguchi, Oscar, Mahoney, Max Lewis, Molly McSpadden, and Shavey. Skiing at Douglas. From left to right: Walt, Mary, Ham Kumasaka, Mack Mori, Max Lewis, and Brown. Haruo "Ham" and Minnie Kumasaka, 1990. |
Haruo "Ham" Kumasaka Panel
-The Empty Chair: The Forced Removal and Relocation of Juneau's Japanese, 1941-1951
-Permission to use this image may be obtained by contacting museum staff.
All images are the property of the Juneau-Douglas City Museum. No image may be copied, downloaded or reproduced without the express permission of the Juneau-Douglas City Museum.
All images are the property of the Juneau-Douglas City Museum. No image may be copied, downloaded or reproduced without the express permission of the Juneau-Douglas City Museum.