STRAWBERRY
FIELDS
A
Brief Summary of the Nakata Family Property
by
Wayne Nakata
Like all family stories, this one really has no definite beginning, and of course no end. But I’ll try to set down some of the basics here, and fill in the details as a part of a lecture series I’ll be taking part in at the Bainbridge Island Historical Museum next summer (2006).
First, the size of the Nakata family property: It began with 15 acres lying along Wyatt Way and Weaver Road. The place was originally developed by a man named Sakakichi Sumiyoshi, who was born in Japan in 1872. He acquired the land and began growing strawberries on it around 1909. His business prospered, and he built a large, two-story farmhouse (see photo) which provided a place to can strawberries from his and other nearby farms. By 1917, the home cannery couldn’t keep up with demand, and the berries were shipped to a Seattle cannery. By the early 1920s, a local cannery was built at the end of Weaver Road on Eagle Harbor, close to the farm, with easy shipping to Seattle.
The name Nakata entered the picture in 1924 when my grandfather, Jitsuzo, acquired the property. He had been born in Agenosho in Japan’s Yamaguchi Prefecture in 1875, and returned there to marry Shima Akimoto in 1906. In the 1920s he was running a laundry and barber business in Winslow. The chance to own the Sumiyoshi property was fortuitous, but since he was not, and by law could not be an American citizen, the deal had to go though others, namely the Nakao family whose son, who was of legal age and a citizen, kindly offered to sign the ownership papers.
Eventually, my dad Masaaki, also known as John, who was born on Bainbridge on January 12, 1907, became the official owner when he turned 21. It was the beginning of a long and significant part of local history which included the double wedding ceremony of my parents, performed by Reverend Osgood of the Eagle Harbor congregational Church in 1933, and Dr. Shepard’s delivery of my two older brothers, and me, in the original farmhouse on the property.
Strawberry production continued there with the help of other islanders, including the Filipino Membrere family and others. At the outbreak of World War II and our incarceration at Manzanar, a Filipino friend cared for the property until the family’s return. The family lived on the land, adding some five acres to the north in the 1950s, and building a new house in 1966. During this time, we were establishing a grocery business which, as many of you know, has become the Town and Country Market Corporation. That business, by the way, recently bought much of the original Nakata farmstead, and hope to maintain and preserve it as an interesting part of our Bainbridge Island history
It may not be “strawberry fields forever,” but it’s a good start.