Satoru

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In March 1887, Satoru Kumasaka (1887-1968), the first son of Saroku (Sataro's uncle) and Matsu Kumasaka, was born at Kubouchi, Omori-mura, Shinobu-gun, Fukushima-ken.  At the age of nineteen, he emigrated from Japan to the United States in the winter of 1906. 

His first job was with a labor contractor in Montana, shoveling snow off the railroad tracks. Labor was cheap at ten cents an hour, ten hours a day, less the cost of meals. There was no money for winter clothes.

Following his return to Seattle in the spring of 1907, he worked as a greenhouseman on Vashon Island. He later moved to Green Lake, where Shoji lived, and leased a greenhouse.  He operated the greenhouse for ten years. 

He went to Japan in 1917 to visit his ailing father and returned to Green Lake after his father's funeral. He went back to Japan in 1921, when his mother became ill. Before returning to Seattle, he married Masami Sato (1900) in January 1922. 

Masami was born on February 25, 1900 at Takenouchi, Noda-mura, Shinobu-gun, Fukushima-ken. She was 22 when she immigrated to the United States with her new husband in May, 1922,

After an accidental fire burned his house in 1922, Satoru quit the greenhouse business and became a licensed journeyman plumber. He quit plumbing during the Depression and began operating the Yesler Apartments, 1932-36; and the Ohio Hotel, 1936-1942. During this time, Satoru and Masami had three children; Roy (1923), Haruko (1928) and Henry Matsuo (1931-1981).

In the spring of 1942, Satoru and Masami were interned at the Puyallup Assembly Center. They spent the remaining duration of the war at the Minidoka War Relocation Authority Camp.  In Minidoka, Satoru worked as a boilerman while his wife, Masami, washed dishes.

Following their release from internment, Satoru and his family returned to Seattle. He worked as a janitor and boilerman at the Seattle YWCA. He then operated the Beck Hotel from 1950 until his retirement in 1968.

An avid reader, Satoru was an intellectual man, a quiet scholar.