Originally published in Northwest Nikkei, May 1994
By Ed Suguro
Before World War II there were a number of company sawmill towns like Mukilteo, Snoqualmie, Selleck, Eatonville, National, Onalaska, Walvill, and Longview in which the Issei worked and the Nisei grew up.
Selleck was about 10 miles east of Maple Valley and was recognized by the King County Landmarks Commission as a historical landmark and by the National Register as a historic district. It was a company town in which the Pacific States Lumber Company, one of the largest on the West Coast, employed a number of Issei.
Among those who lived there were T.Z. Maekawa, who worked at the mill, and the Rev. Joseph Sakakibara, who grew up there until high school.
T.Z. Maekawa
T.Z. Maekawa is 91 years old, with a good memory, a firm grip, an erect posture and a steady walk.
He was born in Shiga-ken, Japan and came to this country as a teenager in 1918. After working around the White River area for a while, he saw a bulletin in Furuya’s Tacoma office offering employment at a sawmill in Selleck. Maekawa went with four others to work there.
He was single, around 21 years old, strong and healthy, and capable of doing heavy labor. He worked at Pacific States Lumber from 1923 through 1925.
“I made about $3.50 to $4 a day,” he said. “Top scale was about $5. From our monthly wage, about $18 was deducted for food and $1.50 for housing. We had subsidized company housing.”
Maekawa was able to save about $80 to $100 a month and usually set aside about $5 a month for spending money. There weren’t many places or opportunities to spend money, so he was able to send money to Japan.
“We worked a six days/60 hours-a-week shift,” he said. “There were two shifts, but I don’t think the night shift worked a full 10 hours.”
They had only Sundays off, but if the company was really busy, they worked Sunday, too. They were willing to do it because they wanted the extra money, but there was no premium pay or time-and-a-half.
There were no vacations; however, around the Fourth of July and Christmas, the company shut down for maintenance and repair of the machinery, so the workers had time off. However, that meant no pay, During those times, the men took off for Seattle, and Maekawa remembered that hotels like the NP, Atlas, Panama, etc., were full of Selleck people.
There were around 150 Japanese workers. There were whites, too, but they were the minority. Whites had the skilled jobs, so they made better wages. There were a few Japanese who had skilled jobs, but most of the others were in the unskilled labor category.
Maekawa worked on the “green chain” detail. He was involved in sorting the lumber as it came on the conveyor belt. He had to look at the markings and sort the same ones into a pile.
There were some Japanese workers who came to Selleck from Port Blakely on Bainbridge Island when their mill closed down. There were also a few father-son teams at Selleck, but most of the Japanese men were bachelors.
There was no workers’ compensation. If you got sick or injured, there was kind of a camp hospital, and the company took care of you. Maekawa believes, however, that you didn’t get paid.
Whites and Japanese lived in separate sections. There were bachelor quarters called boarding houses for the single men, while the married men and their families had regular houses. Maekawa, as a bachelor, shared his quarters with another man. It was still a bachelor society at Selleck with only about 15 couples among the Japanese.
There was a mess hall for bachelors to eat at. A lunch was packed for their noontime meal, so they didn’t have to go back to the mess hall. Married men ate at home because they had wives and regular kitchen facilities.
A representative from Asia Shokai in Seattle came about once a month to sell Japanese foods and other sundry items, and that’s when the housewives ordered their foods. For the bachelors, the food bill was split evenly among the men and came to about $18 a month.
“We had a general store, but I don’t know if it was the company’s store,” Maekawa said. It sold everything you could think of—food, hardware, clothing, drugs, everything.”
The Issei women did not work outside the home except for the few that worked at the mess hall. Some women did laundry for the bachelors.
Joe Kesamaru‘s mother had the only business in town—a barber shop. The Kesamarus later moved to Seattle, and Joe became a star baseball player at Broadway High and the University of Washington.
There was no church, but the Rev. U.G. Murphy, the noted evangelist known locally as “Father Murphy,” came down from Seattle and was a frequent visitor to Selleck. He could speak Japanese, and he preached to the Japanese about once a month.
“In the summer we had baseball,” Maekawa said. “We had a team called the Yamatos. It was a strong team. They played teams from places such as Eatonville, Seattle. and Tacoma.
In wintertime they had shibai (plays), which were held at their mess hall, and put on by the Geijutsu Club (fine arts). The proceeds from the entertainment were used to support the baseball team. People also donated money to support the team.
There was a clubhouse where the men played pool, card games, especially karuta, which everyone seemed to play, and other diversions such as go, shogi, etc. There may have been some gambling, but Maekawa wasn’t aware of it. Some of these sawmills were noted for their gambling and drinking, but not Selleck.
“Selleck was kind of a clean town,” Maekawa said. “It didn’t have too many vices.”
In 1925 Maekawa left Selleck to spend some time in Japan. After coming back to the United States, he moved on to the other sawmills, eventually got married, then settled in Auburn to farm.
Maekawa never went back to Selleck until a student and his instructor were researching the place and found some relics there such as crockery and bottles with Japanese writing that indicated that the area was the Japanese section. They asked Maekawa to make a drawing of the Japanese camp. Maekawa and his wife and son went back there in 1992 for the first time since 1925.
There wasn’t much left of the old place. There was the silo-like incinerator, the engine room, and the old elementary school, now a library/museum. From his memory he made a pencil sketch of the old Japanese living quarters.
Maekawa and his wife Kiyo have been married for 63 years and are living in Kent. Their three children are Nina Chinn, Don, and Bill. There are nine grandchildren and six great grandchildren.
Maekawa keeps busy by cultivating bonsai plants, while Kiyo raises flowers and does handicrafts.
Rev. Joseph Sakakibara
The Rev. Joseph Sakakibara doesn’t know exactly why his father Heiji Sakakibara went to Selleck with his wife, except that he knew that they needed workers there. His parents previously farmed on Bainbridge Island raising strawberries, but the farm failed. His mother said they should never be farmers again. They came to Selleck around 1915 or 1916 and stayed there about 22 years until the mill closed. All the children were born in Selleck. Sakakibara has two older sisters in Los Angeles, while a younger brother passed away. There was another sister, the youngest, who died in infancy.
Sakakibara was born on April 17, 1925 in Selleck and lived there for about 14 years. He was the third child in the family and he has fond memories of the town. He didn’t have the material things, but he had the friendship, support, and love of a close-knit community that knew to have fun as well.
“Dad built our house, and we had running water and electricity,” he said. “The mess hall and bathhouse were nearby the bachelor quarters, and we were also near the mess hall and bathhouse.”
The family had their own furo (bath), but Sakakibara preferred to go to the community bathhouse. It was bigger and you could swim in it.
Sakakibara doesn’t know exactly what his father did at the sawmill, but he was involved in the slicing of the logs into lumber. Sakakibara used to walk through the mill every day because it was a shortcut to get to the school. His mother worked for a time at the mess hall cooking for the bachelors.
Mr. Abo was the foreman for the Issei, Sakakibara said. “He acted as kind of a liaison between the company and the Issei and also may have been involved in the hiring. After he left, Mr. Frank Osawa, who came from another mill, possibly Eatonville, took his place. Abo and Osawa were both Issei and spoke English.”
There was an elementary school in Selleck. Two grades at a time were taught because there were only a handful of students. Both whites and Japanese attended the school. However, they lived in two different sections of the town. Whites were at one end, and the Japanese at the other end.
“We played together at school,” Sakakibara said, indicating that they didn’t segregate themselves there. “But after school, we lived separate lives; we lived a Japanese lifestyle.
“They were our friends [white kids]—a lot of them. I visited some of them who live around here in the last 15 years.”
One teacher, Ed Tomako, now living in Arizona, keeps in touch with Sakakibara.
“He called me and he remembered all of us Japanese students by name,” Sakakibara said. “He was from Bellingham Normal School (now Western Washington University) and he was an athlete. He played semi-professional football, and he was our hero.”
As with most close-knit Issei immigrant communities, there was a Japanese language school. It was held at their small community hall, and there was a long table with wooden chairs. Sakakibara went one hour after school, five days a week.
“One of our teachers was Mrs. Mihara, the sister-in-law of the late Seattle Issei community leader Genji Mihara,” Sakakibara said. “She’s still living and may be the lone survivor of the Selleck Issei community. Mr. Tokunaga, whose sons are in the Seattle area, was the other teacher.”
Sakakibara went about five years to the language school and can read some kanji. He remembers, though, that he sometimes tried to get out of school so he could play baseball.
“We did all kinds of different things during our play time,” he said. “We had a baseball diamond; we had football; we played games like ‘kick the can’ and ‘hide go seek.’ We did a lot of fishing. Fishing was good there because there were a lot of streams.”
“We had a good baseball team,” Sakakibara said. “They were called the Yamatos, but they had Selleck written across the front. They competed against the other Japanese teams. Joe Kesamaru was one of our star players, and there was Charley Ishimaru, who was another good player, but he didn’t play for us, but for Enumclaw High. He was also a track man who was a good pole vaulter.”
Another social event in Selleck was the Japanese movies. Someone from Seattle would bring them in once a month.
“I saw ‘Chushingura’ in Selleck,” he said. “That’s the story of the loyal 47 Ronin [samurai]. We had a lot of these samurai movies.
They also went on outings to Lake Retreat where Sakakibara used to swim. They didn’t have a car—few Issei families did—but one family had a Model T Ford and they occasionally got rides from them.
Sakakibara’s father was a wood carver. A beautiful example that looks like it was carved out of a tree stump sits in the Sakakibara living room.
“He was an artist,” Sakakibara said. “He was known in the community for his wood carvings. Frederick’s [Frederick & Nelson Department Store] wanted to do an exhibition of his work, but he said no. He gave most of it away. He made cranes, turtles, a lot of different things.”
The elder Sakakibara would go out to the woods and cut a tree and dig it up, then he would leave it there to be brought in later because it was usually too heavy for one person to carry. Sakakibara and his younger brother would have to help haul it in.
“I remember that he would have these huge pieces in the laundry tub and would be scrubbing it with a tawashi (an oval scrub brush with a band that almost every Japanese family seemed to have],” Sakakibara said. “We used to order these tawashi in big lots from Furuya.”
Furuya was one of the Seattle companies that came out to Selleck to sell foodstuff and Japanese goods.
“Mr. Katayama was another vendor who came to Selleck,” Sakakibara said. “He had a store on Rainier Avenue in Seattle, and he came to Selleck to sell fish, vegetables, and Japanese food. He came in a pickup truck that had these side doors that opened up.”
Occasionally, it was necessary to come into Seattle such as to visit the dentist. They came in by bus, and the parents would accompany the children. The trip took them through Black Diamond to Maple Valley, then Renton and finally Seattle.
“It was an all day affair just to come into Seattle,” Sakakibara said. “Dr. Fukuda was our dentist, Higo 10 Cent Store was a place we visited. We saw the Smith Tower, and I used to marvel at how tall a building it was.
Selleck did not have a high school, so they were sent to Enumclaw High about 16 miles away. They had to get up early to catch the bus, so it made for a long school day. Sakakibara spent only about a half a year at Enumclaw High.
When the Pacific States Lumber Company closed due to bankruptcy around 1939, the Sakakibaras left Selleck and moved to Longview. His father then went to work for Long Bell Lumber Company.
Sakakibara visits Selleck periodically and has noticed the changes that have occurred. The superintendent of the mill was a Mr. Dunlap, and he had a big house that is still standing and may be the oldest one there.
Sakakibara had a get-together of former Selleck Nikkei who live in the Seattle area about four years ago. They met at his house, and there are about six to ten of them still around.
Sakakibara spent 40 years in the ministry and held pastorates in Northern California for 35 years, 17 of which were spent in Sacramento. He was last at the Japanese Baptist Church in Seattle. He’s been retired for three years.
He and his wife Kay, whom he met in Japan, have three children and five grandchildren. All of them live in California.
Sakakibara likes outdoor work and enjoys gardening. Lately he’s taken up nature photography, and he likes to travel to different places and take pictures of nature scenes. Having been born in the wooded areas of Selleck, he obviously likes to be close to nature.
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