Posts in category: centenarians

Her vision is diminishing, but her memory is crystal clear – especially when it comes to talking about the lush gardens she planted around her home. Perhaps being surrounded by beautiful foliage while he was growing up inspired her son, Donovan, to become a landscape architect. He’s designed many Sacramento residential landscapes.

Grace Fong was born in June 1924 in Sacramento, one of seven children. Dad worked for Southern Pacific, Mom at the local cannery. Grace’s one remaining 95-year-old sister lives in Kaneohe, Hawaii. They talk weekly.

She grew up among other Chinese families near 5th and P Streets. Grace recalls playing hide-n-seek and jump rope with her friends and playing team sports at the nearby YMCA.

She attended Lincoln Elementary and graduated from Sacramento High. Although Chinese was spoken at home, Grace also went to Chinese language school six days a week.  Much to her mother’s chagrin, Grace only spoke limited Chinese with her children. 

Grace was 22 when she met Walter Lee at the Chinese Gospel Mission. She liked him right away because he was thoughtful and a man of faith. Walter was from Walnut Grove and had 10 other siblings. He helped his brothers operate the U-Like Grocery store in Isleton. 

Sacramento’s Westminster Presbyterian Church was the site of their October 1948 wedding. Walter found employment with the U.S. Postal Service; Grace worked for the State of California.  They were married 55 years before he passed. They had two daughters, Daphne and Devonna, and two sons, Donovan and Duane. Grace has six grandchildren and  four great-grandchildren.

Walter cooked most of the family meals, which followed a routine: every Sunday, there was Harvey’s burgers after church and a spaghetti dinner; steamed egg with cream of mushroom soup on Mondays; steamed pork on Tuesdays; sloppy joes on Wednesdays; flank steak on Thursdays; steak on Fridays; and on Saturdays, soy sauce chicken or striped bass. Walter was an avid photographer, chronicling Delta life and residents during the 1930-50s.

Grace’s passion was creating her home’s landscape. The produce garden was filled with Chinese vegetables – long beans, bitter melon, squash, and others, depending on the season. She alone tended to the immense landscape.

Grace hemmed the kids’ clothes on a sewing machine she bought from a neighbor who was sent to an internment camp. The family was very active with the Sacramento Chinese Baptist Church. She and Walter traveled extensively throughout Asia and Europe.

The secret to her long life?  Maybe it’s her genes, her faith in God, or the gardens she lovingly created and nurtured. I think it’s a combination of all three.

People turning 100 has become commonplace at ACC Senior Services. The latest person to cross the century mark is Minnie Iseri. Formerly a resident of ACC Greenhaven Terrace, she is now living at ACC Maple TreeVillage. 

Minnie celebrated her birthday with a Zoom party with family as far away as Japan joining in. Sacramento City Councilmember Rick Jennings presented her with a key to the city while birthday greetings flowed in from Congresswoman Doris Matsui, Assemblymember Jim Cooper, and Mayor Darrell Steinberg.

Minnie was born on August 31, 1920 in Gresham, Oregon.  She grew up on a farm in Vancouver, Washington.  After graduating from Vancouver High School in 1938, she traveled to Tokyo, Japan to study overseas.  She was forced to remain in Japan for nine years due to World War II.

After the war, she returned to the U.S. She eventually established herself in Sacramento, where she met her husband Robert.  They married on July 30, 1949. They relocated to Washington, D.C. and lived there for 10 years. In 1955, their daughter Margaret was born. In 1962, the family returned to the West Coast, where they permanently stayed and called Sacramento their home.  In 1963, their second daughter Tammie was born.

Because Robert was ill and unable to work, Minnie assumed the role of bread winner and went to work.  She first landed a federal job with the U.S. Corp of Engineers.  But in 1970, she transferred to the Sacramento U.S. Attorney’s Office of the U.S. Department of Justice. She served as the personal secretary to the Northern California U.S. Attorney as well as the head office manager.  Minnie was an incredibly hard worker.    

In 1993, Minnie traveled to Washington D.C., accompanied by her daughters and grandson, to receive an award for her years of hard work and dedication.  This award was presented to her by then-Attorney General Janet Reno, and was definitely a highlight of Minnie’s long career.  Minnie finally retired from civil  service in 2001 after 31 years of service.

Since then, she has enjoyed keeping herself busy by helping raise her three grandchildren, Michael, Keiko, and Emiko.  She more recently has had the good fortune of meeting her two great grandsons, Nico and Wes. 

“Friday is my busy day. I go to the hair dresser. I go shopping and go to the restaurant to have lunch,” says Sally Taketa who turned 101 in July. “I enjoy eating almost anything.”

Sally Taketa was born and raised in Sacramento. She lived at 2017 5th Street. Her father worked in a music shop selling pianos, phonographs, and radios. Her mother picked up seasonal work at the cannery. She had three siblings.

“We were surrounded by lots of Portuguese, Italians, and Mexicans,” says Sally. “We did what they did.” She and her friends roamed the neighborhood on Halloween and removed people’s gates from their hinges. “We dropped them off a block away, and they’d have to go find them afterwards.”

Sally went to Lincoln Elementary School on P Street, Sacramento High School and then Sacramento City College where she took up studies in “social welfare.” She also spent a lot of time at Southside Park playing tennis. That’s where she met her husband Henry Taketa.

“At first, I didn’t think much about him, because I was so much into my tennis. It took some time. He was good to me. He had a car and would take me to William Land Park.”

Sally got a job with the State as a social worker. She traveled around the state checking on families. “There weren’t many Orientals asking for help, mostly other ethnic groups,” she says. “I used to walk into homes and find there wasn’t much food on their table, or they had trouble paying the utility bills.” 

After the war Sally and Henry settled in Land Park. They raised two sons, David and Richard.Henry had his law degree, but his practice had a slow start. “Most Chinese and Japanese didn’t trust a young kid handling their legal matters,” she recalls. “He took anything that came up.” Over time, Henry earned the trust of farmers, grocery stores, and other businesses. He became a prominent attorney in the Japanese Ameican community and a large supporter of ACC during the building of its nursing home.

Sally looks back on her 100 years, “I guess I have to be very thankful that there was no tumbling around in my life. My in-laws were very good to me. I was quite fortunate that everything went so well.”

Chang Hou, aged 100, is a resident at ACC Care Center. She raised two boys and four girls in Hong Kong. Her husband was a businessman who imported and exported garments. She often traveled with him to Japan and other places for business. 

In 1974, her husband passed away. By then, her children had moved to the U.S.  She soon followed suit.

Sacramento was a new and strange place for Chang but then she discovered ACC. In the 70s, ACC operated out of a house on V Street owned by the Tambara family. Chang learned ceramics, crochet, knitting, and English.

Chang was also good at math. “She never used a calculator at the store,” says her daughter Emily Chapman. “She can count passing cars and birds when no one even notices them.” 

Chang celebrated her 100th birthday at the ACC Care Center in August with 20 family members present. She doesn’t see herself as old and often remarks that that everyone else at ACC Care Center is old. “Mom has a clever mind and lots of opinions,” says Chang’s other daughter Marie Tan.

In 1999, Chang had a stroke but still went on an Alaskan cruise with 16 members of her family for her 80th birthday. 

Emily says her mom is a tough lady and has a very strong will to live. “She’s been all over the world with her daughters and sons-in-law. She taught us to be honest, sincere, and faithful to God.”

Toshio Fukuda was born in 1917.  What does he attribute his long healthy life to?  Maybe it’s his daily root beer float.  His love for the sweet treat dates back to when he was a kid and went to the local soda fountain in his Oakland neighborhood.  Toshio simply says, “I’m very fortunate and thankful that my parents took such good care of me.”  

As a child, he loved going to the theatre to watch cowboy movies and going fishing, but he admits he wasn’t very good at fishing.  His parents sent him to live with relatives in Japan when he was 6 years old.  He was a good student and was active in judo and swimming.  He returned to the U.S. at age 14 and eventually enrolled at Cal Berkeley majoring in Political Science.   Soon after, he was sent to an internment camp.  It was there that he met his wife. “I always knew she was the one for me.”  They married and honeymooned in Monterey.  

Toshio and his late wife lived for many years in the Bay Area.  He found work at the Simmons Mattress Company.  “The pay wasn’t too good, but they were one of the few businesses at the time willing to hire Japanese.”  They loved going to Lake Tahoe where they enjoyed seeing dinner shows.  “We once met Lawrence Welk in our hotel elevator.  My wife was a great fan, and we told him we had tickets to his dinner show that night.  Mr. Welk wanted to bring my wife up on stage to dance with him, but she said no thank you.  She was too shy to dance in public.”

Toshio now enjoys living at Greenhaven Terrace and “I’m thankful that my niece and nephew in Sacramento help me out these days.”

Mabelle Jan was born on November 12, 1916 in San Francisco, the oldest of 12 children.  Her father owned a grocery store and worked long hours.  She helped her father arrange produce for display when she was young.  During this time, her mother sewed for Levi Strauss & Co.    

In the 1930’s, Mabelle’s family moved to Oakland.  Her father took over a grocery store from a Japanese family who had left for internment camp.  When her parents got into an automobile accident, Mabelle left high school to care for her siblings.  Her parents recuperated at the Chinese Hospital in San Francisco and the children would take the ferry across the bay to visit them.  “On Saturdays, I took my younger brothers to the theatre on Stockton Street.  We’d bring food and sit in the front row.  It cost 10 cents to watch cartoons and movies,” she recalls.  Eventually, Mabelle was able to return to school and graduated from Oakland Technical High School.   

She met her husband, David Jan, at a YWCA dance in Sacramento.  When his father passed away, David had to quit high school to help run the family business, Wing Lee, a wholesale meat market.  They dated for several years.  David would always take the train from Sacramento to Oakland to see her.  They got married in 1942.  Mabelle said, “He set the date.  We had a formal wedding at the Chinese United Methodist Church in San Francisco.”  They never had any children of their own, but they raised her niece from the time she was 21 months old.  Many years later, David left the family business to start a real estate career.  They were very proud that in the 1950’s, he went to night school and obtained his GED certificate.  

Mabelle and David had been married almost 70 years when he passed away.  They traveled around the world.  One special memory was flying on the Concorde in the late 1980’s to New York.  “It was very noisy but fast.”   She learned how to play mah jong and played regularly with her good friend, Mae Chan, another centenarian.  How does it feel to be 102?  She smiles and says, “I’ve had a good, peaceful life.”

Mae Chan was born in San Francisco on April 8, 1917, the oldest of three daughters.  She grew up on Beckett Street in Chinatown.  When she was six years old, Mae went with her mother to the family village in China.  Although she was a U.S. citizen, she remembers staying at Angel Island for almost six months before they got approval to go home.  

She went to Commodore Stockton Elementary School and Francisco Junior High. Mae’s father owned a retail store in San Francisco.  The family moved to Watsonville when he opened his second store called Jang & Company.  Later, he would open a third store in Sacramento.  During this time, Mae got her AA degree from Salinas Community College; then transferred to San Jose State to study business.  Mae liked the fact that her father had retail stores.  “I could get free nylon stockings,” she said with a smile.

When Mae was a young girl, a suitor proposed to her.  But she declined his offer, partly because he was only a clerk at the Dollar Store.  A relative then arranged for Mae to meet Eddie Chan.  “I thought he was nice looking.” Their first date was to the California State Fair.  She liked the fact that Eddie’s family had a grocery business, General Produce.  Mae loved avocados; and if she married him, she’d get free avocados all the time!  In March 1941, they drove to Reno to get married. Then, they turned right around to Sacra-mento to eat dinner with Eddie’s family.  

In the 1980s, Mae and her two sisters (Mildred and Catherine) opened a restaurant called Chopstix Express.  They eventually sold it, as Mae got tired of the work and it took time away from her favorite activity, playing mah jong.  Besides mah jong, Mae’s other passions are traveling and playing the stock market. “For years, the first thing she did in the morning was check how her stocks were doing. She’d have weekly calls with her broker.  She likes tech stocks,” says her daughter Victoria.  

When she reflects back on her 102 years, she says “My daughter Victoria makes me very happy.  I’m glad we traveled to Hong Kong to adopt her.”  Mae is also grateful that two of her friends, Fannie Wong and Mabelle Jan, are also centenarians.  “We just had lunch at Happy Corner Restaurant to celebrate my birthday.” What’s her secret to living this long?  She laughed, “Playing mah jong seven days a week!  I’d still be playing if I could see better.”  These days, macular degeneration may have impaired her vision, but not her sense of humor.