Pride and pain mark isle's rich history

Originally published Saturday, July 26, 1997

By CECELIA GOODNOW
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER

Bainbridge Island has a rich, ethnic history dating back centuries, when it was home to the Suquamish people, who set up summer fishing camps at Eagle Harbor and returned in the fall to villages at Port Madison and other areas.

In 1792 Capt. George Vancouver anchored off Restoration Point on the island's south end. The English explorer was followed nearly 50 years later by Capt. Charles Wilkes, an American who named the island for Commodore William Bainbridge, a naval hero of the War of 1812.

The island's early days are chronicled in "A History of Bainbridge Island," available for $7.95 at the Bainbridge Island Public Library. It was written by island native Katy Warner, whose grandfather arrived in 1858 to work as a captain on sailing ships owned by George Meigs. He founded Port Madison -- Kitsap County's original county seat.

In the mid- to late-19th century, the island became a center for ship building, lumber mills and agriculture. The Bainbridge Island Historical Museum, at Strawberry Hill Park, 7650 N.E. High School Road, has a small display patch of Marshall strawberries -- the kind sent to Victoria, B.C., in the 1930s to serve the visiting queen of England.

The island's oldest, continuously operating farm -- established in 1928 -- is owned by 75-year-old Akio Suyematsu, who grows strawberries, pumpkins and Christmas trees.

World War II brought one of the saddest chapters of island history -- the nation's first forced evacuation of residents of Japanese ancestry, most of them American citizens. On President Roosevelt's authority the army forced some 240 people, including Suyematsu's family, to leave -- mainly for California internment camps. They received a week's notice in March 1942 to dispose of their property.

"Most of them have arranged for Filipinos who have worked for them in the past to operate their strawberry farms and other properties for them," the Post-Intelligencer reported at the time.

Walt and Millie Woodward, who had bought the Bainbridge Review two years earlier, editorialized against the forced evacuation.

"They hadn't owned the paper very long when relocation happened," says their daughter, Mary Woodward, 51, who still lives on the island.

"What they said was this was wrong -- constitutionally wrong -- and the rights of our neighbors were being violated. It was a difficult thing to do. They noticed advertising fell off and there was a lot of cancellation of subscriptions."

Millie died about 10 years ago, but Walt, 87, lives in a condo in Winslow and writes a column for the Review. Three years ago the island named its newest school in their honor.

"My fifth-grader is delighted that next year he's going to be going to Woodward Middle School," says Mary Woodward.

The legacy of that period, fictionalized in David Guterson's "Snow Falling on Cedars," lives on at Bainbridge Gardens, a destination nursery near Island Center. It was started as a produce stand in 1912 by Zenhichi Harui, who had arrived from Japan six years earlier, and his brother, Zenmatsu Seko. By 1935 it had grown into a large nursery with greenhouses, lavish landscaping, sunken gardens and carp-filled ponds framed by stone lions. A grocery store and gas station fronted the nursery on Miller Road.

"It was a miniature Butchart Gardens," recalls Zenhichi's son, Junkoh Harui, now 64.

The evacuation of Japanese Americans brought their enterprise to a crashing halt. The Haruis escaped internment by moving to Moses Lake, but when they returned, the gardens were in ruins and the task of resurrecting them proved too great for Zenhichi Harui, then in his 60s.

In 1989, when new commercial development forced Junkoh Harui to relocate his Winslow nursery, he returned to the old family property to resurrect his father's dream. The new Bainbridge Gardens, which sits on seven wooded acres, draws plant-lovers with its mix of trails, display gardens and outdoor cafe.

Junkoh Harui honored his father by designing a memorial garden around trees his father planted about 70 years ago, including Japanese red pines started from seed in Japan and a pear tree sculpted in the shape of a pear.

"We are protecting a wonderful legacy that my family left behind," he says, adding that he had mixed emotions about returning.

"We've had some very painful experiences during the war period. My first reaction was I didn't like to come to this property much because I had negative feelings about it. But I certainly made the right decision in coming back here.

"The most important thing is it became a stronger connection with my heritage when I started to work on this project. We were looked on as second-class citizens at one time, or thought we were. It has helped diminish that feeling."