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| Kay Hasegawa |
Kay
Kazue (Uyeno) Hasegawa
(Poston 326-3-B) was born on
September 12, 1922, in Visalia, California to Japanese immigrants, Soichi and
Hatsuyo (Yamashita) Uyeno. Her father, Soichi, was a fish salesman who immigrated
from Japan to the U.S. in 1905. Her mother, Hatsuyo immigrated to the U.S. in
1918, and became a naturalized citizen in November of 1954.
Kay was a 1939 graduate of Visalia Union
High School, and 1941 graduate of Visalia Junior College.
On March 18, 1942, Executive Order 9102
established the War Relocation Authority to remove Japanese Americans from the
West Coast. Kay's older brother, Masumi Uyeno, enlisted in the Army at Fort
MacArthur, San Pedro, California on March 30, 1942. That
summer, Kay, her parents, and two sisters, Satsuki and Ryo, were transported by train from Visalia to Parker,
Arizona. They were incarcerated at the Poston
concentration camp 3, located in the desert on the Colorado River Indian
Reservation. They arrived on August 7, 1942---the day when the temperature was over 125 degrees.
In Poston, Kay was employed as the assistant editor of the Poston Chronicle
camp newspaper. She was also researcher for anthropologist Edward Spicer and
sociologist Dr. Alexander H. Leighton, who worked at Poston and wrote studies
about community relations in an American concentration camp.
On June 28, 1943, with the joint financial
assistance of the American Friends Service Committee with the heads of several midwest and East
coast colleges, universities, and the YMCA/YWCAs, which had formed the National
Japanese American Student Relocation Council in 1942, Kay was able to leave
the Poston concentration camp to complete her college
education at the Baptist Missionary Training School (now part of Colgate
Rochester Crozier Divinity School) in Chicago. She was elected president of her senior class of 1945,
and earned a B.A. degree in Christian Education. After
graduation, she returned to Poston, Arizona and spent the summer with her parents at 326-3-B.
In the fall of 1945, Kay went to Colorado
to work with girls and young women at the Denver Christian
Center, a Baptist institution. That winter, she met her future husband, Sammie
Hasegawa, who was with a group of young men who came to the center to sing
Christmas carols. On June, 1, 1947, Kay and Sammie were married in Denver. They
subsequently lived in Kansas, Arkansas, and Missouri. In 1955, they moved to
Sioux Falls, South Dakota, where Sammie was appointed a professor of economics position with
Sioux Falls College (now University of Sioux Falls).
During the 1950s and
1960s, Kay concentrated on raising her children, and enjoyed
cooking, baking, sewing, and quilting. She taught Sunday school at the First
Baptist Church and was active in church social activities. In 1966, Kay
returned to professional life employed as a Medical Librarian at the Sioux Valley
Hospital (now Sanford Health), until she retired in 1987.
Kay (Kazue) Hasegawa died August 23, 2012 in
Sioux Falls, South Dakota. She was preceded in death by her father, Soichi Hasegawa
(1973).
She is survived by her husband, Sammie;
son, Sam (Gail Cain) of Sioux Falls, Steve (Cathy) of Omaha; daughters, Carol
(Fung Eng) of Buffalo, and Claudia of Minneapolis; brother Masumi C. Uyeno; sister, Satsuki Uyeno;
and grandchildren, Charles (Stephanie), Tobey (Brett Stillson), Kevin, Ed,
Lukas, and Salim Cain (Heather); and great-grandchildren, Ashton and Ainsley.
Source: Visalia Times-Delta on August 30, 2012
