More than a centenarian, Kay Ikeda is now in her 11th decade, having just turned 102. This four-year resident of Maple Tree Village was born at home in Clarksburg with a midwife’s help in September 1921. Kiyoko Koyasako was the middle child of eight, with an older sister and six brothers. Nicknamed “Kik” as a young girl, she has devoted her long life to her extended family.
During the 1920s and ’30s, Kik’s family grew asparagus and onions on a farm owned by their relatives. As a girl, she remembers picking asparagus and packing it in the sheds. She suffered many headaches as a child, but that didn’t prevent her from excelling at sports in school. She remembers playing tennis against other nearby schools. “I was good at sports – not so good at studying!” she recalls.
She had no idea what she wanted to do after she graduated from Clarksburg High in June 1941, just six months before the bombing of Pearl Harbor and the U.S. entry into World War II. The Koyasako family was sent to Tule Lake internment camp. Kay adds, “It was terrible. I left good friends behind.” All of her brothers played in camp bands that entertained other internees. “We went to the shows and made new friends,” she recalls. She worked in a canteen as a clerk. Now, some 80 years later, she is philosophical about her camp experience: “It wasn’t that bad. I made a lot of good friends. I had to go, so I went.”
After camp, her family returned to farming, though not to the one they had left behind. Initially, her father wanted to pack up the family and return to Japan, but none of the kids wanted to go, so he abandoned his plans. It was in the years just after the war that Kay met David Ikeda. He had gotten a job at the farm “sexing chicks,” i.e., dividing the females from the males. They married and moved to Chicago. They eventually moved back to Sacramento, but after a while, David wanted to move to Nashville to be an artist. Kay didn’t want to leave her close-knit family, so they divorced.
Kay moved into an apartment on W Street with her now widowed sister, Tsuyako, nicknamed “Chuck”. They lived together for many years. For decades, Kay worked at an elegant dress shop called Kneeland’s Apparel Shop on 9th Street, near the site of the Central Library. Nephew Mark Koyasako remembers that she dressed immaculately, like a model. At the shop, she received and unpacked incoming clothing, supervising two other workers.
Kay and Chuck centered their lives around family: cooking the annual New Year’s Day feast, caring for nephews on weekends, and spending summers fishing at the family’s cabin on Sardine Lake. “They always remembered all of our children on birthdays and at Christmas,” recalls sister-in-law, Alma Koyasako. Alma is also a resident at Maple Tree Village.
“Auntie has always been sociable and outgoing,” says Mark. She’s filled her years with family and friends and as a regular at Music Circus. She has traveled far and wide, meeting far-flung relatives in Japan, visiting friends in Hawaii, and marveling at the scenery in Canada.
Now the only surviving Koyasako sibling, she continues to enjoy the many activities at Maple Tree with her best friend Betty. She is lovingly cared for by the next generation. Mark oversees her health and day-to-day needs; nephew-in-law Peter Look takes care of her finances. As Mark recognizes, “Both she and her sister have been very important members of our family.”
Add a Comment