Tsuu Sakakiyama

Diana was able to get this photo through relatives in Japan.
Hiroko (Sakakiyama) Nakamura is the family historian in Japan and she
provided the picture. (There were two Hirokos involved in this.
Hiroko Nakamura is around my (Betty Shibayama's) age and our cousin. The other Hiroko
who contacted her is the younger generation, who Diana met in Canada)

By Diana Morita Cole

This is a photograph of Tsuu obasan (Aunt Tsuu Sakakiyama), my mother's aunt. Tsuu obasan was Zentaro Sakakiyama's sister--my mother's aunt on her father's side. She is pictured here with obaachan's younger brother, Seikichi, who died when he was 36.

Tsuu obasan treated obaachan like a daughter since she had no children of her own. At one point, she was planning to legally adopt Masano. Tsuu obasan loved my mother very much was reluctant to let obaachan marry and immigrate to America, which may be one of the reasons why there was an eight year interval between my father's original proposal and her departure for the States. She warned, "If you go to America, you will suffer."

I believe she understood the disadvantages of marriage since she had left her own marriage and returned to live with her brother, Zentaro.

According to Auntie Betty Shibayama, Auntie Fumiko was sent to Japan with Ohara no ojisan to live with Tsuu obasan because she was lonely for obaachan. But Tsu obasan died unexpectedly at the age of 48 on February15 1924. So Fumiko went to live in the Morita household instead.

Tsuu obasan had a talent for business. She helped my widowed grandmother turn the Sakakiyama home into a hotel after Zentaro died.