Mystery History -- Solved

I stumped everybody again, although everybody was close in one way or another.

In the circa 1910 photo above, Hanhichi Wakiji, front right, poses with staff at the Nippon Nursery at 1505 E. Orange Grove, which he founded in 1905.

Born in 1876 in Japan, he set sail in 1895 for San Francisco where he worked as a houseboy before coming to Pasadena. He was only the second Pasadena pioneer born in Japan (Toichiro Kawai was the first).

With so many hotels and mansions being built by and for wealthy captains of industry from the east coast, Hanhichi saw a need and capitalized on it.

After learning the trade from the owner of Rust Nursery Company in South Pasadena, he founded his Nippon Nursery Company with two partners who soon after moved back to Japan, after which he bought them out and became sole proprietor.

Nippon Nursery provided palms, ferns, roses, evergreens and ornamental trees to hotels and middle- to upper-class residential properties throughout Pasadena and Altadena. It became a thriving enterprise and Hanhichi a prominent businessman.

La Pintoresca Hotel at the northeast corner of Fair Oaks and Washington was one of his many clients:


Hanhichi and his wife Taeno raised six children at 1485 E. Orange Grove, near the nursery, and were one of only three Japanese families living east of Lake Avenue. At the time, most Japanese families lived in what was for many years known as Japantown in what is now Pasadena's Central District.

Here's the family circa 1922:


And a formal family portrait about 10 years later:


The children -- Masa born 1912, James Hajime born 1914, Kaoru born 1916, Takeko born 1919, Mari born 1922 and George Minoru born 1929 -- attended Thomas Jefferson Elementary School and John Marshall Junior High School. Five of the six attended Pasadena High School and Pasadena Junior College; Masa was educated in Japan during her high school years.

After the bombing of Pearl Harbor in 1941, the Wakiji family was among many that were evacuated from the west coast of the mainland to internment camps farther inland. The Wakijis went through the processing center at Santa Anita Racetrack and were sent to the Gila River Relocation Camp.


By the time they returned to Pasadena in 1945, Nippon Nursery had fallen into a state of neglect so Hanhichi enlisted help in putting it back into shape quickly and rebuilding the business. He experienced discriminatory post-war comments about the name Nippon (the native name for Japan) so he changed the name to Wakiji Nursery.

Here's the extended family in the 1950s with Hanhichi and Taeno sitting in front:


Hanhichi retired in the mid-1950s. Two of his children continued to operate the business for another decade until they closed shop after he died in 1966.

Hanhichi and Taeno Wakiji are buried at the Mountain View Cemetery in Altadena.


Many thanks to the Wakiji family, the Japanese American National Museum and the National Archives.

Mystery History -- Solved

Barbara Ellis wins with her 8:49 a.m. Tuesday comment "My guess is that this is one of the more than 600 Japanese-Americans assembled at the Rose Bowl who left before dawn on March 23rd 1942 in a huge convoy heading for Manzanar, with almost 200 driving their own vehicles." Others were warm but Barbara hit it right on the head!

In the photo above, an unidentified man waves farewell just before dawn on March 23, 1942, after being processed at the Rose Bowl Stadium for residency at the Manzanar internment camp.

The stadium, Santa Anita Racetrack in Arcadia and the Fairplex in Pomona were among the processing centers and assembly areas for persons of Japanese descent living in western regions of Pacific coast states who would be relocated temporarily to camps in interior regions of California, Arizona, Utah and Wyoming.

I didn't know until I heard Joel Sheldon speak at an event on Sunday that Vromans Bookstore regularly sent boxes of books to Manzanar during this period.

Excerpt from the Los Angeles Times, March 22, 1942:

Tomorrow morning approximately 1000 Japanese will leave for the evacuation city on a special train and in busses, while a huge motorcade, again under the convoy of the Army, will depart from the Rose Bowl in Pasadena for the same destination.

General instructions to Japanese leaving here for Manzanar tomorrow morning were issued yesterday by Maj. Gen. Walter Wilson, commanding the Southern California area.

Each person, the orders declared, will be required to bring all bedding except mattresses, all tools of his trade, clothing, cooking utensils, a one-gallon container of drinking water and his personal belongings. Baggage will be limited to what each person can carry with him and to what can be carried by baggage facilities on train or bus.

Before the war there were several businesses in Pasadena owned by Japanese American residents, most in the area bordered by Walnut Street, California Boulevard, Orange Grove Boulevard and Marengo Avenue. See a map showing businesses in 1940 here.


Many Japanese American residents belonged to the Pasadena Union Presbyterian Church. There is an honor roll displayed on the front window in this photo that lists the 117 Japanese Americans from Pasadena who were serving in the U.S. military at the time. The church offered free storage for the belongings of Japanese Americans who were interned at camps during the war years, then served as a dormitory and job placement facility when they returned to Pasadena.

It was one of hundreds of buildings demolished to make room for the 210 Freeway. Although the structure is no more, the ministry lives on as part of the First Presbyterian Church in Altadena.

Pasadena City College is looking for former Japanese American students who were forced to leave PCC because of World War II internment. Honorary degrees will be bestowed by PCC during commencement festivities in June as part of the California Nisei College Diploma Project.

President Ronald Reagan signed into law the Civil Liberties Act of 1988, legislation on behalf of the U.S. government that apologized for the internment of Japanese Americans, called for public education about the camps and provided for restitution. More more than $1.5 billion in reparations were paid to individuals and heirs.

The Japanese culture lives on in our community with organizations such as the Pasadena Japanese Cultural Institute and the Pasadena Buddhist Temple.


Many thanks to Pasadena Public Library.