By MARY UYEMATSU KAO
Two July babies now in their 99thyear are celebrating their 90+ years of friendship —Shigeko “Shag” (Nishijima) Morishita and Elsie (Morita) Uyematsu Osajima, born in the Year of the Ox.
Elsie, my mother, first met Shag on one of her father’s grocery deliveries to farm families in San Gabriel Valley. Elsie’s parents, Jiro and Reiko Morita, took orders for Japanese food stuffs from local farm families and then picked up the orders from Little Tokyo and delivered them. Jiro remembered seeing a young girl about Elsie’s age, and so he brought Elsie along on a delivery so they could meet.
Shag’s family were farmers on what is now called San Marino, growing vegetables and berries.
At the Gila concentration camp, Shag and Elsie were classmates at Butte High School, along with Yosh Nakamura. Their senior yearbook pictures were taken in 1943. Both Shag and Elsie received Quaker scholarships as graduating high school seniors. Shag went on to Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa and Elsie to Doane University in Crete, Nebraska.
The Quakers were outstanding in their support helping Nisei gain access to college educations, enabling them to leave their concentration camps to areas that welcomed Japanese into their communities.
Shag and Elsie both dropped out of their college studies to get married. Shag had met Ted Morishita at Tulare Assembly Center. While Shag went on to Gila, Ted stayed back at Tulare to help care for people who came down with valley fever. He came to Gila after that.
Elsie’s brothers, Bill and Dick Morita, were attending the University of Nebraska in Lincoln. Bill and Dick had a “sweet sixteen” birthday party for Elsie, where she met their roommate, Francis Uyematsu.
Shag and Ted lived in Cleveland and then Chicago. Ted stayed in Chicago to attend watchmaking school, while Shag returned to Camp Pendleton with their first child, Dianne, to help with the other kids being raised on her parents’ farm. Francis and Elsie were at Fort Snelling in Minnesota, where Francis was a cook for the Military Intelligence Service.
Shag and Ted ended up making Gardena their home and they raised their four kids —Dianne, Marilyn, Bill, and Kathy. Francis and Elsie raised their daughters Amy and Mary in Sierra Madre. Through Ted’s watchmaking skills, he started part-time at North American Aviation working on guidance systems for the Minuteman missiles. He later became full-time at Rockwell, where he worked on gyroscopes for submarines. Quite an impressive record starting from watchmaking!
Fast-forward to more recent years. It was Auntie Shag who thought my husband would be interested in meeting Sho Nomura, who was in Yenan, China during World War II. This was the subject of one of my earliest Rafuarticles, “Shoso Nomura: Through the Fire and Back,” in 2016. https://rafu.com/2016/03/through-the-fire-shoso-nomura-through-the-fire-and-back/
Despite the physical disabilities that accompany 90+-year-olds, Shag and Elsie can’t help but forget their memory lapses when it comes to seeing each other. They pick up where they left off, laughing and teasing each other as they always did.
As they celebrate their 99thbirthdays this month of July, the golden rule of friendship — through thick and thin, through fire and brimstone — stands the test of time. Happy birthday, Shag and Elsie! You still bring out the spunk in each other!
Mary Uyematsu Kao has worked at the UCLA Asian American Studies Center since 1987. She received her MA from UCLA Asian American Studies in 2007. She can be reached for comments, questions, and/or criticisms at uyematsu72@gmail. com. Opinions expressed are not necessarily those ofThe Rafu Shimpo.