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Home / Washington Business - Spring 2003 / Book Review: Spirit of the Sun |
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Book Review: Spirit of the Sun |
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Written On: Spring 2003 |
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Written By: By Charles Henry Thomas |
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You won’t find the word “Gambatte” in Webster’s Dictionary. But if you knew George Yoshino, “Gambatte” fit him perfectly. Despite his undulant life, he never quit or let people see his pain and disappointment. He just regrouped and started over.
Spirit of the Son is George’s life story—the tale of a proud Nisei—a workaholic who internalized everything.
Chances are that unless you lived in Quincy or the TriCities or were on AWB’s Board, you didn’t know George Yoshino. Too bad, he was a great guy whose word was good as gold whether written in a contract or cemented with a handshake.
In many ways, George was a chip off the old block. His father, Heizo, who changed his name to Frank, was a tireless worker. He was quiet, dignified and respected. He immigrated to Washington in 1907 after completing law school. But rather than further honing his skills to take back to an established Tokyo law firm, he quickly made friends in Seattle’s burgeoning Japanese community. For some reason, which he never explained, he signed on as a laborer on the Northern Pacific Railroad. The end of the line was at Ringold, a tiny community on the Columbia River near Pasco where Frank became a row-crop farmer.
If farming was this Issei’s ambition, why didn’t he farm in the fertile Auburn and Kent valley with its temperate environs? Maybe he took on central Washington’s harsh desert to escape the anti-Japanese sentiment which was growing on the west coast. While some white farmers were resentful of the bountiful crops raised by the Japanese farmers, the Yoshino family never experienced that prejudice in Kennewick.
In 1915 Frank went back to Japan to marry. He chose Kazuye Hada, the cultured and charming teenaged daughter of his former employer. She joined him to battle the heat, dust, wind, bitter cold and rustic life along the Columbia River.
They became respected and prosperous truck farmers who bore three boys and a daughter—all of whom became active field workers. George was the youngest and the most ambitious. The family continued expanding their vegetable farm each year, trucking their fresh produce to Seattle and Portland.
Life was good for the Yoshino family until Japan attacked Pearl Harbor. Suddenly, the family was unceremoniously escorted to the Pasco railroad depot, packed onto a train and sent to an interment camp in North Portland. The family was confined to a converted stockyard.
Just as young George was settling into life in North Portland, the family was uprooted and sent to the North Central Wyoming prairie. It was that internment which stripped his father of his dignity and killed his entrepreneurial drive. While interment left its indelible mark, the Yoshino family chose to move on with their lives.
After the war, George moved to Quincy where he started farming. Like his father, George slowly built his operation before branching out to packing sheds and eventually building a potato dehydration plant. He was a master at cutting deals on the spot. His trademark was his marketing prowess, vast knowledge of farming and 12-to-16-hour work days. But unlike his father, George did not involve his own children in his operation—only his brother, Vic. His wife, Francis, also a Nisei, raised their four children.
George’s operations were humming along until his brother Vic demanded his share of the business. To cover Vic’s buyout and the financial drain of the dehydration plant, George mistakenly took on Sid Eland as a financial backer. The Eland deal was bad from the beginning and it eventually cost him everything.
The Yoshino’s packed their bags and headed to Pasco. George was hired to set up the U&I farming operation as the arid lands along the Snake River opened to irrigated farming. While the new job was less demanding, the preceding years had taken their toll on his marriage. The Yoshino’s divorced and George eventually married Margueritte Hilburn.
Later, George started Century 21, a potato packing plant in the TriCities, and shipped fresh spuds to southeastern U.S. markets. He was very successful, but the years of long work hours, chain smoking and stress weakened his heart. After a series of heart attacks, he died on December 30, 2000.
You won’t see Spirit of the Son on the New York Times best sellers list. But his story and the message are timeless: Life can be cruel and unfair. Still, if you preserve, you can prevail.
Gambette. Be stout of heart. Stand firm and do your best. But along the life’s trail, take some time to smell the roses and enjoy your family and friends.
Charles Henry Thomas is a western Washington freelance writer.
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