By Shihou Sasaki
The North American Post
Hara Family.
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In the early 1900s Japanese immigrants were forming their organizations and making their
lives comfortable in their foreign country. Seiichi Hara, an Issei (Japanese immigrant), was also
one of pioneers as well as a leader serving the community.
Hara was born on Apr. 4, 1882, at Tsubaki in Mie prefecture to a rice producing business
farmer and one time mayor. After graduation from Senshu University in Tokyo with an economics
major, he entered in Seattle in 1905 for further education in the states. He went to San Francisco
in 1906 to attend an evening school and moved other areas including Wyoming, according to Kazuo
Ito's "Issei."
Hara came back to Seattle in 1911. He decided to reside in Seattle and returned to Japan
long enough for his marriage with Shizuko Inagaki. Returning to Seattle in 1918, he operated the
Union Hotel briefly and subsequently operated Tacoma Hotel in partnership with Kakuzo Kawakmi. The
hotel was located at 822 S. Jackson St.
"In those days Japanese husbands and wives worked together, in the daytime cleaning or making
beds, and at night looking after the guests," he said in the "Issei." "When the bell rang at the
counter, I went out and answered it. I used to be awakened several times a night."
According to Ito's "America Shunju 80 Nen," management of hotel and apartment
houses was one of the main Nikkei businesses even pre-and-post World War II. The book mentioned
that there were 221 hotels and apartments operated by Nikkei before Pearl Harbor, and the number
increased to 290 in 1959 at the largest.
Hara was a mainstay of the Seattle Japanese Hotel and Apartment Association, which was founded in 1946.
He was also active in the Seattle Japanese Chamber of Commerce; the Seattle Japanese Cultural Society; the
Educational Committee of the Japanese Language School; the Japanese American Citizens League; the Jackson Street
Community Council; the Seattle Community Chest Drive (United Way) and the Gold Star Parents Association.
Hara used his English skill helping those who wished to obtain an engineer license for steam heating to run
a hotel or apartment and rented market stalls at the Pike Street Market and the Seattle Market and also was
interpreting instructor of the Saga Goryu School of Ikebana at demonstrations.
In community education, Hara was an Education Committee member for the Japanese Language School and
took responsibility for developing a set of Japanese texts for the Japanese American students.
Hara and Shizuko had two sons, Norio and Ben, and two daughters, Mary and Amy.
Shizuko Hara, left, resting after surgery at the camp in 1943 with, left to right, Seiichi, Norio, Ben, and Amy.
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After the attack on Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941, he was detained along with other over a 100
community members by the FBI at the Immigration and Naturalization Station in Seattle. He was soon
transferred to Fort Missoula, Montana Detention Center, and could not see his family until June 1942,
at the Puyallup Assembly Center.
Son Norio was stationed at Ford Ord in California at the time, but other members of the Hara
family were relocated to the Minidoka Relocation Center in Idaho a few months later. Seiichi Hara
served as Head Block Manager and later as president of the Gold Star Parents Association.
Other son Ben enlisted the U.S. Army and was sent to the Military Intelligence Service School at Camp
Savage in Minnesota. While Norio was sent to Europe in the war, Ben served in the South Pacific. Ben passed away
in Tokyo in 1945.
Daughter Amy left of the Minidoka camp and attended St. Mary's College in South Bend, Ind.
Seiichi Hara returned to Seattle in early 1945 and resumed operating the Tacoma Hotel, which was managed by his
family friend during World War II. He kept the business until 1964 when the I-5 freeway took part of the hotel.
When he visited his hometown at age 72 for the first time after World War II, the local media covered his return
and meeting his family in Japan.
He still kept his services and activities for the community and received many trophies, plaques and
certificates for his services including the Award Ceremony of the Foreign Minister's Certificate of
Commendation in 1960. He passed away May 6 in 1968 at age 86.
Awesome Blossoms
By Gerald Elfendahl
On Friday afternoon, May 9, Sakai Middle School students on Bainbridge Island
packed the hillside meadow around their new - and two very old - blossoming cherry trees
for the "First Annual Cherry Blossom Festival" and to honor their principal, Jo Vanderstoep.
Students played Japanese folk songs and shared haiku read aloud and artistically written
on decorated paper that fluttered among the blossoms. One read: "Pink cherry blossoms, softly
swaying in the wind, floating in puddles."
No puddles this day - though maybe a few happy tears! Eagles and billowing white
clouds like giant blossoms filled a sunny sky.
Two 80-year-old Yoshino cherries originally given to the high school campus by the
Island's Issei in the early 1930's, and transplanted at Sakai School last year when it looked
like a high school addition would destroy them, were in full bloom. Two others were saved at the
high school.
Soon-to-be-retiring and founding Sakai School principal, Jo Vanderstoep, was honored by
students and faculty. A new "Daybreak Yoshino" purchased with help from Junkoh Harui at
Bainbridge Gardens by the fifth grade class was dedicated to their principal. A stone marker
commemorating her decade at Sakai was prepared by Molly Greist and unveiled by fifth graders Edie
Madigin and Bailey Starbuck.
"Remember this day," Greist urged the students." You are the keepers of the memory of
this historic event and the story of the Cherry Trees at Sakai."
Fifth grader Starbuck commented later, "I read about the cherry trees coming to Sakai
last year in the newspapers. The festival was part about Japanese culture and part about our principal.
My teacher, Mrs. Haas, asked Edie and I to make a cover for the stone to surprise Ms. Vanderstoep and to
give a speech. It was hard to keep it a secret!"
Teacher Shelly Minor shared a history of cherry blossom festivals around the world.
(L to R) Kay Nakao, Jo Vanderstoep and Molly Greist amidst children and haiku.
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Kay Nakao, Sakai family elder, shared thoughts on the day. "I always knew that there was a cherry blossom
festival. Now I think more seriously about it because the cherry trees at Sakai mean so much. It is something
special that every season when the blossom blooms, we have 'hanami' or 'flower viewing.' It gives you a
feeling that is hard to describe - of peace and an appreciation of beauty. The Yoshino cherry - the old tree -
has such big, marvelous blossoms! The (students') haiku was just perfect. They should put it into book form
and share it year to year. Everyone was awesome - 'awesome as the blossom'! Now that's a haiku!!"
Olaf Ribeiro, renown plant pathologist, and appreciative Islanders Sue Cooley and Bob Pierce, were on hand, too.
Olaf oversaw "The Great Cherry Tree Transplant of 2007." Many had told Olaf that it couldn't be done.
"You can't transplant a 24,000 lb. cherry over a mile away," they said, "not in May! Are you crazy?"
With the help of many heavy equipment operators, fellow arborists and caring students and Islanders, it was done.
"It is important to save the things that make the Island special, Ribeiro said. "Many new people coming here know
little about what has made this place unique. It is important to keep Island traditions and history alive. Saving
the trees was just a technical challenge. We can do anything we set our minds to do - if we have the will. It was
wonderful the way people stepped up to help get the job done. That's an Island tradition, too."
Cooley rejoiced, "I was very impressed with the whole scene of the children beneath the cherry
trees on their hill - a perfect spot! - and the way the students bought a new tree to commemorate
their principal and shared all of their beautiful haiku!".
Jo Vanderstoep, principal, Sakai Middle School, honored by student and faculty at Cherry Blossom Festival
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Bob Pierce, Winslow, Navy veteran, was one of the first ashore at Nagasaki at the end of WW II.
He has dim memories of hills of blossoming cherries in Japan and Korea. At this day's celebration,
Pierce saw more than blossoms, "I am so proud of those young people who made the festival possible.
I really enjoyed them. It was beautiful to see us raising up such good kids!"
"It has been such an absolute honor to be the founding principal of this school and to help celebrate
this community and its culture," Vanderstoep exudes. "The day was priceless. I will hold it for a long time."
The historic festivities were topped with a cherry - popsicle treats for all flavored by cherry harvests of the past.
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