Two Women and WWII

Meet a dear friend of my grandma Jennie’s, Kimiyo Kawasaki. We know that Kimiyo and grandma met in Chicago, Illinois around the time of WWII. They were both born in 1919 but would go on to have very different experiences with the war but crossed paths in Chicago (likely post-war) where they developed a life long friendship of correspondence and a few visits. If you’ve happened upon this because you knew her, I’d love to for others to share stories!

In 1942, Kimiyo, a US born citizen with Japanese parents was interned at Tule Lake, June 22, 1943 until April 13, 1944 during WWII. You can view her record here at the National Archives, where her record shows her last address was Sacramento, so she was likely relocated from there.

You can find a series of entries about her time there here, including the ironic commentary that Kimiyo struggled in the internment camp because she only spoke English and was hoping to use her time to learn Japanese. We have these insights thanks to another fascinating human, James Sakoda, who went on from his time in the internment camp as a JERS researcher, as a base for his PhD from Berkley and went on to use it to create a social science computer modeling system.

The methods in which this research was conducted has informed future discussions around the ethics of fieldwork. This paragraph not only shows a mundane detail of life in the camp, while also feeling like an prime example of observations laced with a bit of judgement:

Kimiyo later went on to earn a degree from Northwestern University in 1949. (Page 29 here). She clearly did not struggle with languages as she went on to be a teacher of Spanish and the General Program Chairman of the Association of Teachers of Spanish and Portuguese in addition to being an active member of the Chicago Public Schools teacher’s union. Here’s some photos she sent to Jennie and Vince when she graduated, and showing off her new suit:

Meanwhile, we know that Jennie graduated from Fremont County Vocational High School in 1938. After that she headed to live with her aunts in Chicago. During the war she served as a machinist at the Sloan Valve Company, where she received a commendation of her War Time efforts.

It was not surprising that Jennie and Vince met in Chicago during the war, in Kansas, Jennie’s aunts (9 of them!) were neighbors with the Pozun family (5 boys) and the families shared an apartment in Chicago. Here’s a few photos of Jennie with her aunts and Vince during that time which she carried mostly fond memories of!

Vince entered the Army in February of 1943 and was discharged in April of 1945, spending time in recovery in Missouri until November 1945. He and Jennie married in May of 1946 at the Cook County Courthouse in Chicago and left Chicago soon after as Vince began employment in Superior, WY in October of 1947.

All that said, it is most likely that Jennie and Kimiyo crossed paths somewhere between late 1944 when Kimiyo was released from Tule Lake and as Vince was recovering in Missouri and returning from war and remained friends to the end. Here’s a picture from Kimono’s visit with my grandmother in the 1990s.