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Show Tuesday, July 1, 1980 The Citizen-Page 5 uu(B U WRESTLERS- "Uke is pictured in a wrestling honors." I n v J Jv lot COUPLE ON LAWN- "Uke" and Mary pose betrothal was negotiated by a baishakunin, a Freezers Save up to $150.00 Window & 1 ; . 4 f j i 4 i I - I . 1 U I Mf . v ' f , ? ' . " f . I 1 t 1 I n Ready To ) y arPet 1 Paint Cleaning S Furniture J Chemicals a2Pric2Price Recliners t Swivel save up to $200.00 Rockers S match at Lagoon. "He always won top 1 V f' during their courtship in Tremonton. Their go - between. Lf Bike Bike Pocket & Hunting Knives' 60 o Hardware Duplicate Ily (v Vr'. C.ilizen-t'nf Vr-v lirfmrlvr In the spring of 1942, a young farmer was burning the ditch, as farmers must. The rock formations of American Fork Canyon rose out of a soft mist, touched gold by the slanting shafts of the morning sun. The smoke from the crackling grass sparked like cotton candy as it rose high enough to hit the sun's rays. The farmer could see the tiny outline of two men walking in the haze on the isolated Highland road. As they drew near he straightened and waved. "Don't wave at us, you yellow Jap or we'll shoot ya," one of them yelled. The beauty of the day vanished, as anger and fear rose in a hot flush to the farmer's face. Then he glanced quickly toward the brick bungalow where his wife Mary watched the three babies playing on the front porch. The innate nature of the man rose to the surface as Yukus Inouye leaned on his shovel and watched the men disappear into the distance. "At that point, I figured that those men didn't know me and I didn't know them, and that I needed to become known," he said. "I'm grateful that I did, because some of my friends went into a shell at that time and took their families with them. They felt like they were second-rate citizens. . . They just withdrew from society." Yukus Inouye has made himself known. The phone rang at the Inouye home in Highland on May 23, 1980. "President Kimball would like to speak to you. . .," a voice said when Uke answered. After 40 years of intense service to the people of Utah, this Neise couple are going to Japan, where Yukus Inouye will serve as first counselor in the Tokyo Temple presidency. The threat that changed the direction of Uke's life came as a result of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, December 7, 1941. Mary was washing celery when a news broadcast announced the attack. "It was a blow to us," she said. "We were shocked, stunned. We had the radio on all day. . . We were just numb. We were frightened. We didn't know what was going to happen to our family. We'd never experienced anything like this." Uke was born in 1919 to Chokichi and Towa Inouye, the only boy in a family with three girls. Chokichi had come to the United States from Shimane Ken, a small ALL SALES FINAL DEALERS WELCOME All Remaining Stock In The Following Departments Paint House Numbers Paint Accessories Tire Numbers & Letters CB Accessories Room Size Vacuum Bags Carpet Remnants 1 try Accessories Clocks Tires & Tubes Christmas Decorations Garden Supplies Hardware Stove Pipe Housewares Gifts Automotive Nuts & Bolts Electrical Light Fixtures town in Japan where the only way to make a living was farming, fishing and tile making. He worked for U and I Sugar in Preston, Idaho, leaving his wife and three daughters in Japan. After two years, he's raised enough money to send for his family. He rented a 60 acre farm in Taylorsville, Utah, then bought a 24 acre farm on creek road in Union, east of Midvale, where the family raised strawberries and chickens. Mary's mother, Isono, left her family when she had finished the only available schooling in Fukuoka, in 1912. "She really like school and wanted to continue," Mary explained. "To get to the school she wished to attend, in a different part of Japan, she had to walk and climb mountains." After a year at school (roughly equivalent to our universities) Isona grew so homesick she walked back to her home through the snow, only to find a letter waiting that would take her away from her family for a whole generation and from her mother, whom she would never see again. Mary's father, Bunemon Tanaka, left Japan with a tide of emigrants who settled in Hawaii. He tried his hand at being a barber, then went to California. After a year there he went to the Bear River Valley in Utah in 1906 to work for U and I Sugar and as a cook and houseboy for Dr. Pitt. Isono became a "picture bride," honoring a tradition of arranged marriages when Bunemon wrote to relatives in Japan asking them to locate an appropriate young lady to be his wife. Her family gave her a reception, a proxy marriage was performed, and Isono sailed for Seattle, where Bunemon was waiting to take her to the local church for a formal ceremony. "Her mother kept writing, coaxing her to come back for a visit," Mary said. ". . . and each letter promised next year, next year." Isono was kept busy helping her husband on the 80 acre family farm in Tremonton, and with the nine babies who arrived in time to prevent each promised visit. When the letter came carrying news of her mother's death, Isono held it in her hands and knew, before she opened it, what it contained. Mary and her brothers and sisters went to public school five days a week, then on Saturdays and Sundays, went to a private Japanese school of 100 students, in Honeyville, Utah. "We were just ordinary teenagers," Mary fo) UW ZD) ALL ITEMS SUBJECT TO PRIOR SALE OFF Nuts & Bolts Electrical Light Fixtures Gutters & Downspouts Caulk Weatherstripping Sporting Goods Reg. $329.00 Sale Price recalls. "We goofed off and didn't realize the value of this school, but we did learn to read and write Japanese and we had to do essays. We were learning, even with the goofing off. I'm grateful that we did have the opportunity, because foreign languages are so valuable now." Uke served as studentbody president of his junior high school, was active in high school athletics, as guard on the Jordan High School football team and was business manager for the Jordan High School paper. "There were several hundred Japanese families in Utah in the late 30's," Mary said. "We used to have gatherings, picnics and dances in the different towns. Each year we'd have a picnic at Lagoon. We'd take a lunch and have wrestling and games and races." "Uke used to get in on the wrestling," she continued. "He'd be the top winner every time. My dad also like wrestling. It was one of his favorite sports and he invited Yukus home." Yukus was drawn to young Mary, the third child in the Tanaka home and declared his interest in a letter to her, then through a baishakunin. "A baishakunin is kind of like a go-between," go-between," Mary explained. "They talk to the parents and do all the things that need to be done to negotiate the marriage. "All the time we were going together, Uke would come after school and help my dad build a potatoe cellar. My parents were really impressed with him." A special meeting was held in Honeyville to discuss the engagement, with the whole community upset that the third child in the Tanaka family should be the first to marry. "They thought that was really out of line," Mary said. "But we were finally given the go-ahead." Uke and Mary are the parents of six children, Ronald N. Inouye, Carolyn Y. Mano, Donna R. Cavanaugh, Geraldine Yamashita, J.D. Inouye and Vicki I. Maetani. All are college graduates, four are involved in Relief Society presidencies, three in Bishoprics. "We've always encouraged our children to take a positive attitude," Uke said. "We've taught them to get involved, to be responsible citizens and to contribute to society," Mary added. The young couple cared for Uke's parents on the farm in Union for several years, then moved to a brick bungalo, still standing, POT $"-UU just east of what is now the Bull River Planned Unit Development in Highland. The three generation family (there were three children now) seemed secure until their world came crashing down with the bombs that were dropped on the American ships at Pearl Harbor. "The experience we had during the war wasn't a pleasant one," Uke explained. "When I went to a cafe, they wouldn't feed me, I went to a barber shop, they wouldn't cut my hair. . . I was called all kinds of names. There was a lot of animosity and discrimination and because of racial characteristics we could be easily identified." "In the state of Utah the Japanese people didn't have to evacuate, but we were watched closely," Uke continued. "I was surprised at the detailed information they had of our activities. Only those who were involved with Japan in business or politically were sent to the camps in Minnesota or back east. Those of us who had no Japanese connections were under close surveillance. We had to be in at 9 p.m. We weren't allowed to keep firearms or cameras. I had a 22 rifle so I told a man who had worked for me that he could have the gun. "Four or five days later, Sheriff Beckstead drove up while we were eating lunch and said, 'Uke, we're mad at you.' I grew up with Beckstead, we were all raised together as kids, so I said, 'What did I do?' "Beckstead explained that the gun had to be turned in to the sheriff's office. It couldn't be in the possession of anyone where a Neisi might have access to it." The word Issie means first generation pioneers from Japan. Vi. the second generation, born in the United States and Sunsci. the third generation. "They watched us that close," Uke explained. "I don't know where or how they got their information, but it was interesting. They knew more about me than I did myself." Uke's decision to get involved in the community led him to service as a committeeman in the Boy Scouts, then as Scout Master, then on the scout commission com-mission in the Alpine Stake. He has had so many church, civic, political and business involvements that they are too many to enumerate to any great extent. He was a Utah County Commissioner from 1973 to 1979 and was chairman of the commission in 1976. Some of his corn-continued corn-continued on Next Page) Wilton Cake & Supplies 60 offX Dinette Sets Save up to $300.00 I nmnloto Y Bunk Darl Cote UCU V $257.00 TV Sets Save to Door Screens Cloth 57 foot 7ieg. $1-29 Keys 47 'tfoot |