Michiye Nomura
July 17, 1915 - February 25, 2014

Michiye Nomura (also known to friends as Rose or Mitch) passed away at age 98 on February 25, 2014, at her home in Burien, Washington, in serenity and surrounded by her grateful children. A woman of exceptional physical, mental and moral strength, she overcame the many challenges life dealt her with fortitude, integrity and equanimity.

Michiye was born in Fresno, California on July 17,1915 to Japanese immigrants Tazu (Ashida) and Tamajiro Okano. From an early age, she helped her parents raise watermelons and vegetables and tend the chickens, cow and horse on their farm. Confident with machinery, by the age of 12 she was driving a pick-up truck. She also showed early practical creativity when in her early teens she made a pattern and sewed a dress for the new school year, without any kind of instruction.

When she was 16, her widowed mother took her and younger siblings, Shigemitsu and Teruye, to their ancestral village near Hiroshima, Japan. She enrolled in high school and two years later graduated with honors. She excelled at landscape embroidery and was adept at playing the koto, a traditional stringed instrument.

Her mother thought that it would be best for 18-year-old Michiye to return to America, which was more suited to her temperament and style. A go-between arranged for her to meet Tokuo Nomura, who had traveled to his birthplace from his home in Kent Valley, in order to find a wife. They were married in January,1934 and settled a few months later on a farm near O'Brien. Over the next several years they had three daughters.



From 1942 to 1945 the family was interned at Tule Lake Relocation/Segregation Center in California, during which time Michiye gave birth to two sons. After World War II ended, the family was transported back to Washington state to reside in Lakewood Housing Project near White Center, and another daughter was born. In 1958 the family moved to Burien in the Highline area south of Seattle, into a house that would be Michiye's home for the rest of her life.

Besides managing the household, Michiye earned an income from the late '40's to the late '70's as a skilled worker on farms run by the Desimone, Colacurcio, Diorio and Teraoka families; at Boeing's Everett assembly plant; and as a seamstress in Nordstrom's alterations department at Southcenter.

She designed and landscaped an abundant garden and maintained it until the last year of her life. A student for many years of Mrs. Hatsu Yorozu, she achieved teacher certification in Japanese flower arrangement from the Saga School in Japan. For some 40 years, until well into her 90's, �Mitch� attended pottery classes at Moshier Community Art Center.

After her children were grown, Michiye began traveling to many foreign countries. Though she waited four decades to return to Japan to reunite with her sister (�Imagine the joy�, she wrote in a postcard), they and other family members later exchanged many trans-Pacific visits. She read just about every issue of The Seattle Times published since 1946, and in her later years would spend the entire morning reading the paper, doing the daily Jumble puzzle to keep her mind sharp. �Mom� was always up for a Scrabble game with her children; and she joined her sons in rooting for the Mariners, Seahawks and Huskies.

Michiye maintained memberships in the Seattle Buddhist Church and the Hiroshima Club.

She is survived by her children Bernice Nomura of San Francisco, Irene Chau (Joe) of Stockton, Lewis (Maryam) of Seattle, Walter (Chieko) of Stockton, and Carolyn of New York City; grandsons Darryl Chau and Jeffrey and Gregory Nomura; granddaughters Carrie (Peter Lee) and Nikki (Keith Krzesny) Nomura; great-grandsons Evan Krzesny and Dylan Lee and great-granddaughter Taylor Lee; and nephews Manabu and Kenji Okano and niece Eiko (Okano) Morita in Japan. Nesan (elder sister) to her siblings and seven brothers and sisters-in-law, and their spouses, she is survived by sister-in-law Fujiye (Jean) Quinn. Her Ashida cousins, Fusako and Hisao (Buddy), also survive her. Tokuo, her husband of nearly 74 years, predeceased her in 2008. Daughter Violet predeceased her in 2005.

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