Dad, Part I
By Jean Ikezoe-Halevi
(My father, Quentin Chihiro Ikezoe, passed away on October 8 at age 90. This is the story I wrote for his funeral service.)
My Dad was a great man. He overcame many circumstances in life that would have crushed others and made them bitter, but he always found the positive side.
Quentin Chihiro Ikezoe was born on May 2, 1922 in San Jose, California to Tomitaro and Suye Ikezoe, who were immigrants from Japan. Tomitaro was a sharecropper on the vast Winchester farmland, which was owned by the widow of the heir to the Winchester rifle fortune. Chic and his older brother Mits were born on the property in a house built by their father. The site where their house stood is now part of Interstate 280.
When Chic was 1 ½ years old, his mother died while pregnant. At age six, Chic’s father contracted tuberculosis. Consequently, Tomitaro could no longer care for his sons and took them to San Francisco to live in the Japanese Children’s Home, an orphanage run by the Salvation Army.
Despite this, Chic was a happy-go-lucky child and the gang leader of several boys at the orphanage during the Great Depression. Chic and his gang stole rides on cable cars by hanging on to the cow catcher in the front so the conductor wouldn’t see them. He told the other boys “to hold on tight” so they wouldn’t fall off. Other antics included getting newspapers to sell, then pocketing the money and running off.
One day he was reaching out the window of the second story bedroom he shared with several boys and fell. He crashed through the skylight of the infirmary below and barely missed the sink, hitting his arm on it. The infirmary was empty and no one saw him walk out. It became a mystery as to how the skylight was broken.
On May 27, 1937, Chic and his friends walked across the Golden Gate Bridge on opening day. It was a grand celebration. He took a small wooden stake from near the bridge and hid it with other mementos in a secret place in the orphanage. It may still be there today.
When Chic was a young teenager, he met a new girl at the orphanage. Her name was Betty Niguma, and she would turn his life around. Betty was smart so Chic studied harder and finished high school.
After the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, Chic was one of 120,000 Japanese Americans who were taken from the West Coast and sent to internment camps behind barbed wire with armed guards in some of the remotest places. He was 19 and sent to Heart Mountain, Wyoming. Betty and her three younger sisters were sent to Manzanar in Death Valley, California; she and Chic wrote to each other during the war.
Chic volunteered for the army, but was rejected for poor eyesight. After about a year in the internment camp he could leave if he had a job, but Japanese Americans could not return to California. He saw an ad posted for a job in downtown Chicago as a dishwasher at the Sherman Hotel. He decided to go to Chicago because he listened to the WLS on the radio and the announcer would say, “It’s a beautiful day in Chicago.”
Coming to Chicago, he had a series of menial jobs, including one at the Oscar Mayer meat packing plant. There were many different people working there, including Americans of Chinese, Japanese and Filipino heritage. The military was a huge customer for Oscar Mayer, and one day an officer saw “Orientals” working there and complained. He wanted them all fired and the company complied. News of this reached the Quakers, who came and tried to get the men rehired, but to no avail.
Soon after, at the end of WWII, Chic was drafted in the army. He was sent to Hawaii, where he worked in communications with the 972nd Signal Service Battalion. He liked reading the news sent from across the country, especially the baseball scores. Chic enjoyed Hawaii, but once, while swimming, he was stung by a Portuguese man o’ war. While in the service, Betty wrote to him each day; he received more than 700 letters.
After the war he went back to Chicago and wanted to get a good job so he could marry Betty. Luckily, civil service tests were being given for U.S. Post Office jobs and he passed. (To be continued next month.)
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Jean Ikezoe-Halevi is a Chicago area journalist who has written for newspapers and television.
(This article first appeared in The Chicago Shimpo newspaperin November 2012.)
By Jean Ikezoe-Halevi
(My father, Quentin Chihiro Ikezoe, passed away on October 8 at age 90. This is the story I wrote for his funeral service.)
My Dad was a great man. He overcame many circumstances in life that would have crushed others and made them bitter, but he always found the positive side.
Quentin Chihiro Ikezoe was born on May 2, 1922 in San Jose, California to Tomitaro and Suye Ikezoe, who were immigrants from Japan. Tomitaro was a sharecropper on the vast Winchester farmland, which was owned by the widow of the heir to the Winchester rifle fortune. Chic and his older brother Mits were born on the property in a house built by their father. The site where their house stood is now part of Interstate 280.
When Chic was 1 ½ years old, his mother died while pregnant. At age six, Chic’s father contracted tuberculosis. Consequently, Tomitaro could no longer care for his sons and took them to San Francisco to live in the Japanese Children’s Home, an orphanage run by the Salvation Army.
Despite this, Chic was a happy-go-lucky child and the gang leader of several boys at the orphanage during the Great Depression. Chic and his gang stole rides on cable cars by hanging on to the cow catcher in the front so the conductor wouldn’t see them. He told the other boys “to hold on tight” so they wouldn’t fall off. Other antics included getting newspapers to sell, then pocketing the money and running off.
One day he was reaching out the window of the second story bedroom he shared with several boys and fell. He crashed through the skylight of the infirmary below and barely missed the sink, hitting his arm on it. The infirmary was empty and no one saw him walk out. It became a mystery as to how the skylight was broken.
On May 27, 1937, Chic and his friends walked across the Golden Gate Bridge on opening day. It was a grand celebration. He took a small wooden stake from near the bridge and hid it with other mementos in a secret place in the orphanage. It may still be there today.
When Chic was a young teenager, he met a new girl at the orphanage. Her name was Betty Niguma, and she would turn his life around. Betty was smart so Chic studied harder and finished high school.
After the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, Chic was one of 120,000 Japanese Americans who were taken from the West Coast and sent to internment camps behind barbed wire with armed guards in some of the remotest places. He was 19 and sent to Heart Mountain, Wyoming. Betty and her three younger sisters were sent to Manzanar in Death Valley, California; she and Chic wrote to each other during the war.
Chic volunteered for the army, but was rejected for poor eyesight. After about a year in the internment camp he could leave if he had a job, but Japanese Americans could not return to California. He saw an ad posted for a job in downtown Chicago as a dishwasher at the Sherman Hotel. He decided to go to Chicago because he listened to the WLS on the radio and the announcer would say, “It’s a beautiful day in Chicago.”
Coming to Chicago, he had a series of menial jobs, including one at the Oscar Mayer meat packing plant. There were many different people working there, including Americans of Chinese, Japanese and Filipino heritage. The military was a huge customer for Oscar Mayer, and one day an officer saw “Orientals” working there and complained. He wanted them all fired and the company complied. News of this reached the Quakers, who came and tried to get the men rehired, but to no avail.
Soon after, at the end of WWII, Chic was drafted in the army. He was sent to Hawaii, where he worked in communications with the 972nd Signal Service Battalion. He liked reading the news sent from across the country, especially the baseball scores. Chic enjoyed Hawaii, but once, while swimming, he was stung by a Portuguese man o’ war. While in the service, Betty wrote to him each day; he received more than 700 letters.
After the war he went back to Chicago and wanted to get a good job so he could marry Betty. Luckily, civil service tests were being given for U.S. Post Office jobs and he passed. (To be continued next month.)
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Jean Ikezoe-Halevi is a Chicago area journalist who has written for newspapers and television.
(This article first appeared in The Chicago Shimpo newspaperin November 2012.)
