Mary Matsuda Gruenewald papers, 1877- 2022

Mary Matsuda Gruenewald was a Japanese American activist, author, and healthcare professional who wrote several books on her experience of being detained during the incarceration of Japanese and Japanese Americans in World War II. Mary’s father Heisuke Matsuda was born in Japan in 1877 and came to the United States in 1898 as a laborer. He worked in Hawaii, Alaskan Klondike, and Cle Elum. In 1921 he returned to Japan, where he met his wife, Mitsuno Horiye. The two returned to the United States in 1922 where Heisuke worked on a farm in Fife belonging to a fellow Japanese immigrant, Yoshio Yoshioka, before moving to another farm in Seattle. Heisuke and Mitsuno had two American-born children, Yoneichi (b. 1923) and Mary (b. January 23, 1925). In 1927 the family moved to Vashon Island where they leased a ten-acre farm in the Shawnee area and grew vegetables, loganberries, and cherries which they sold in Tacoma. At the beginning of the Great Depression in 1930 Heisuke bought 10 acres of farmland on Vashon Island and built a four-bedroom house and a barn for $2000. Because anti-Japanese laws prohibited Japanese-born immigrants from owning land, the property was purchased under the name of Yoshioka’s adult American-born son Daiichi, with the intent of transferring ownership to Yoneichi when he turned 21. The Matsudas cultivated strawberries and other crops which were sold in Seattle, Tacoma, and Puyallup.

Following the December 7, 1941, attack on Pearl Harbor, the Matsuda family burned all their Japanese possessions to dispel any suspicions of Heisuke being a spy for Japan. On May 16, 1942, Mary Matsuda, her brother Yoneichi, and parents were among the Japanese and Japanese Americans on Vashon Island forced from their homes by the United States Government under Executive Order 9066. The Matsudas were labeled as “Family #19788” and incarcerated at a series of camps, starting with the Pine Dale Assembly Center. They were then moved to Tule Lake in California where Mary finished her high school classes, graduating from Tri-State High School on July 16, 1943. While at Tule Lake Mary began collecting shells from the dry lakebed on which the camp was built; she made jewelry and wall hangings which she sent to friends on Vashon Island. The family was later moved to Heart Mountain, but Yoneichi and Mary both left the camp to aid in the war effort in 1944. Mary joined the Cadet Nurse Corps, training and working in a hospital in Clinton, Iowa. Yoneichi joined the 442nd Nisei Regimental Combat Team and served in Europe, receiving a Bronze Star in 1945. Their parents were transferred to Minidoka to be closer to friends.

During the war, daily operations of the family farm were overseen by Mack Garcia, a Filipino immigrant who had lived and worked on the farm, while financial management was placed in the hands of Deputy Sheriff Finn Shattuck. Shattuck failed to send the Matsudas the income from harvests, pay operating expenses, and report on the condition of the farm. When Yoneichi left camp for his military service, he made a detour to check on the farm and finalize the transfer of ownership. In September of 1945 Heisuke and Mitsuno Matsuda were released from camp and returned to a farm in need of upgrading and maintenance. Realizing that his parents were unable to oversee the farm on their own, Yoneichi applied for and received an early release from military service to assume management. He continued to farm strawberries and over time expanded it to encompass 54 acres, but technological advances started to make farming on Vashon Island increasingly difficult. By1979 the Matsuda farm was the only large-scale strawberry farm left on the island. Yoneichi Matsuda harvested the last strawberry crop in 1985.

Mary returned to Vashon in 1947 after completing nursing school and passing the Iowa State board tests. She moved to Seattle to work as a registered nurse at Providence Hospital and received a bachelor’s degree from the University of Puget Sound (UPS). While at UPS she met Chuck Gruenewald, who was studying to become a minister. They married on August 10, 1951, and had three children, Martha (b. 1954), David (b. 1956), and Ray (b. 1960), before divorcing in 1973. She married her second husband, Jack Aldrich, in March 1974. Throughout this time Mary worked as a registered nurse for more than twenty-five years at Group Health in Seattle, working her way up to Nurse Manager of the emergency room. In 1971 she founded Consulting Nurse Service, which enabled telephone consultations with registered nurses. Her coworkers remembered her especially for her courage and tenacity during a Seattle nurses’ strike in 1976. Mary retired in 1990 but continued to be active, volunteering with the Group Health Senior Caucus, advocating for improved senior health care, preventative care and wellness programs, and keeping the experiences of Japanese Americans during World War II alive.

Later in life, Mary took writing classes and became an anti-racist activist. She published her memoir Looking Like the Enemy: My Story of Imprisonment in Japanese-American Internment Camps at age 70. She was inspired to tell her story after witnessing history repeat itself after September 11, 2001, as Muslim Americans became targets of the same xenophobia and racism she had faced as a young girl. Following the success of her memoir, she later wrote an edition for young readers and Becoming Mama-San: 80 Year of Wisdom (2013), a continued memoir. She participated in the March on Washington in 2002 as a medical delegate representing seniors on behalf of Medicare Plus Choice. In 2004, Mary was selected as one of ten delegates to travel to Washington D.C. to meet with President George W. Bush to advocate for improvements in the U.S. healthcare system. Among other public events, Mary threw the first pitch at the Mariners’ game on September 14, 2003, and made a pilgrimage to Tule Lake to publicly apologize for condemning the “No-No” position in July 2006. At age 92, she made national news again, when she received her high school diploma at the graduation ceremony for the Vashon High School class of 2017.

Yoneichi and his wife Miyoko began downsizing the Matsuda family farm beginning in the 1980s, selling parts of it and converting the land to hay. In 1976 Mary received 5 acres of the property from her brother, on which her son Ray Gruenewald later reforested with native trees. In 2015 Miyoko Matsuda offered the Vashon-Maury Island Land Trust the last 12 acres in her possession and in 2022 Ray Gruenewald followed suit and donated his mother's 5 acres.

She died at age 96 on February 11, 2021.

Source: "A Brief History of the Matsuda Family and Farm" by the Vashon Maury Island Land Trust, https://static1.squarespace.com/static/6335be0032641c3bd7aaa313/t/64495f40dceeb81004a071bf/1682530114695/Matsuda+Farm+and+Family.pdf