The Lives of Heihachiro Izumi and Tamako Sasaki

The purpose of The Compass Rose is to raise awareness of Special Collections' resources and to foster the use of these resources. The blog series also reports significant new programs, initiatives, and acquisitions of Special Collections.

President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066 on February 19, 1942. This order would be used to force around 120,000 Japanese Americans into internment camps. Families were housed in barracks at the camps, and food shortages and substandard sanitation was common. Students and laborers could study and work outside of the camps as needed, but barbed wire fences and guard towers prevented people from leaving on their own. Even as they faced racism and persecution in the US, around 33,000 Japanese Americans served in the military in different capacities during World War II.

This above photograph of Heihachiro Izumi and his wife, Tamako, is a part of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram Collection and was taken in November, 1943. The photograph depicts the two of them celebrating Izumi passing the Women’s Army Corps (WAC) aptitude test. The photograph itself is quite interesting and informative, but as archivists we work to find out more about our materials. Knowing about the lives of those depicted in our photographs gives us a greater understanding about the historical context of our photographs, and helps us remember that archival collections are not just about names and numbers but of people and their experiences.

We know Heihachiro Izumi's name thanks to the information gathered by the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, and Izumi’s name was found in Serving Our Country: Japanese American Women in the Military During World War II by Brenda L. Moore. The book used images of Air-WACs from the National Archives Records of the Office of War Information (RG 208) collection, and thanks to the archival collection and book we know that her name was Tamako Irene Izumi and that she served in the Air-WACs. We then took these names and put them into a genealogy website and were able to find their marriage certificate, which is pictured below.

According to their marriage certificate, Heihachiro Izumi was born in Phoenix, Arizona to Mayoji Izumi and Masuko Kanashiro. Both of his parents were from Japan. Heihachiro was 22 at the time of their marriage and his address is listed as Fort Lewis, Washington. This fort was built in 1917 and is still in operation as the Joint Base Lewis–McChord or McChord Air Force Base. Tamako’s name was listed as Tamako Irene Sasaki, daughter of Tadatsuna Sasaki and Yei Koreyeda. She lived in Los Angeles, California.  Heihachiro and Tamako were Nisei: children of Japanese immigrants. We don’t have records of how they met, but we do know that their wedding took place at a place called Wedding Manor at S. Western Ave., Los Angeles. If we wanted more information on the wedding hall, we could look at historical city directories or Sanborn Fire Insurance maps, which were originally created for assisting in fire insurance claims and have subsequently become extremely valuable for historical research.

According to the United States WWII Army Records, Heihachiro enlisted in the Army Air Force on March 11, 1941in Los Angeles, California. Before entering the service, he worked as a sales clerk and had two years of college education. 

On July 17, 1942, Heihachiro Izumi and Tamako Sasaki’s nine-day old daughter Sharon Matsuye Izumi died at the Poston General Hospital, Yuma County, Arizona. This document serves as a memory to the far too brief life of Sharon Izumi, and shows us that the family lived at the Poston War Relocation Center at Yuma, Arizona.The camp was built on the Colorado River Reservation against the wishes of the Colorado River Indian Reservation Tribal Council. The camp was subjected to the extreme high and low temperatures of the desert. At its peak, over 17,000 people were held at the camp. 

On July 9, 1943, Heihachiro Izumi and Tamako Sasaki’s son Patrick K. Izumi died at Mineral Wells, Texas. His parent’s address was listed as 1310 Elmhurst Park, Mineral Wells, Texas. The Elmhurst Park Housing Project was constructed to house military personnel and defense workers assigned to Camp Wolters. The photograph at the top of the page of Heihachiro and Tamako celebrating Tamako passing her WAC exam was taken in November, 1943. 

We were not able to find much information on their lives after World War II. 

The documents we found showed the difficulties the family faced during World War II, and their travels across the United States as they were held in internment camps and served at military bases. We can witness the joy they felt when Tamako passed her WAC exam, and we can remember the pain they must have felt at losing their children. We now stand as witnesses to their lives during the war and the experiences they had during a tumultuous time in history.