By Michael Patrick O’Brien–
I fall in love with certain stories. When the tale ends, the gobsmacked me begs for another delectable chapter, a short paragraph, or even just one more line of the beloved epic. This idiosyncrasy probably explains my ongoing obsession with a friend’s family tale of survival and triumph, despite their World War II captivity in internment camps like Topaz, Utah.
Renee Morita is married to my law partner and friend Angus Edwards. About fifteen years ago, Angus let me read a beautiful speech Renee wrote about a University of Utah scholarship they had endowed in the name of Renee’s Japanese-American parents, Thomas Hiroshi Morita and Chiyoko Horiuchi Morita. Tom and Chiyo and their families—all American citizens—were rounded up and forcibly interned in the middle of the last century.
I hounded Renee/Angus until they published the speech in The Salt Lake Tribune (copy reprinted here: Transforming a grave injustice into opportunity for others). Then, I pestered Renee again until she gave the same speech during a Grandparents Day assembly at my children’s school. Over the years, I also have bugged Renee to translate and tell me about the letters her interned grandmother wrote and received from friends in elegant Japanese script.
Just when Renee and Angus thought (or at least hoped) I was done with such badgering, I persuaded them a few years ago to take me to Topaz (near Delta in Western Utah) on the 75th anniversary of the family’s 1942 internment. It was sad but a lovely and meaningful adventure too (see: Crucifixion and Resurrection in Utah’s West Desert).
Still not satiated, however, last month at dinner I urged Renee to let me seek out even more factual details about the family’s lives in Utah post-Topaz, after WWII. A kind woman, she patiently agreed. I logged on to newspapers.com and my research has further fired my obsessive fascination for this family’s remarkable story.
Renee’s grandmother Tomeye came to America at age 17 in 1908. Her husband died before the war and Topaz, so right after her internment, Tomeye stayed in Utah. She had managed a high-end restaurant in San Francisco so she confidently bought and operated restaurants for the family on Salt Lake City’s west side. I can only imagine how difficult this was for a single woman, let alone for a female of Japanese ancestry, during the years immediately after WWII.
The restaurants, called the Star Cafe, the Dawn Noodle House, and the Star Pool Hall, were popular gathering spots in the city’s old Japantown. Tomeye’s son Tom and his wife Chiyo pitched in to help run the businesses and also cared for Tomeye who died in 1953, at the young age of 62.
Renee’s parents continued the family business for many years afterwards, until much of Japantown was razed and replaced by the sprawling Salt Palace Convention Center in the mid-1960s. Another local family noted in 2007: “Beneath the present-day structure of the Salt Palace lies the soul and memory of the Japanese people.” (Salt Lake street may honor Japantown)
While still operating, the Morita family businesses regularly hosted local patrons, wedding receptions, and even reunions for Latter-day Saint missionaries who had served in the Far East. Celebrities visited their restaurants too, including the touring Japanese national judo team and Archbishop Nissho Miyoshi, the spiritual leader for some 50 million Buddhists worldwide. The archbishop leader toured Utah in 1951 shortly after he met with President Harry Truman.
Chiyo and Tom were active in civic organizations. Chiyo held positions with the Intermountain District Council, the Intermountain region of the national Japanese Americans Citizens League (JACL). Chiyo and Tom helped the many volunteers who organized the annual “Oriental Festival” held at Salt Lake’s Japanese Church of Christ. Tom spoke to students and community groups about his time at Topaz, including during events marking the 50th anniversary of the camp. The JACL also held events at the Morita restaurant during its national gatherings in Utah.
Along with his strong work ethic and family values, Tom also apparently had a bit of mischief in him. The family pool hall was known to host gambling-for-cash card games from time-to-time. (I will have to cross-examine Renee to get more of those juicy illicit details!)
And woe to the visitor or relative attending the family’s regular gatherings for the first time. They often were easy marks for the Morita/Horiuchi card sharks. This was true even though Chiyo’s brother, Tsutomu “Tube” Horiuchi, was a retired Salt Lake County Sheriff’s deputy and the first Asian-American deputy in that law enforcement agency.
After being forced from their homes on the Pacific Coast during WWII and forcibly relocated to live in wooden barracks in remote places like Topaz, Utah, and Minidoka, Idaho, Renee Morita’s grandmother, parents, and other family members could have become bitter, angry, and resentful towards the country where they were born or that they had adopted.
Instead, they picked up the pieces and rebuilt their lives. They worked hard, got jobs, started businesses, raised families, educated their children, helped each other, served in the military, and did volunteer work for their church and civic communities. Their tale is an exceptional lesson about the value and power of resilience and family ties. And although their country initially shunned them, their tale is a quintessentially American story.
Maybe that is why I can never get enough of it.
*Mike O’Brien is a writer and attorney living in Salt Lake City, Utah. His book Monastery Mornings (found here), about growing up with the monks at the old Trappist monastery in Huntsville, Utah, will be published by Paraclete Press (more information here) in August 2021.
