By Patti Horikawa (daughter of Lucy Minamishin)
SAN JOSE, CA – Lucy Minamishin was born November 6,1924 to Japanese immigrant parents Kunihisa Matsunaga and Tsuya Inaba in Mountain View. She grew up in the Santa Clara valley with her four brothers and sister. She had to drop out of school in fifth grade so that she could take care of her siblings and father since her mother developed a long term illness. She was never able to go back to school.
In 1942, Lucy and her family were temporarily incarcerated at San Anita Race Tracks then transported to Heart Mountain and imprisoned until 1945. They lived in Block 30 at Heart Mountain. She was 18 and too old for the schools so she worked at the canteen and fields. I’m told she was a good basketball and baseball player.
After the war, Lucy and her family moved back to San Jose where the Buddhist Church assisted in finding places to live. Lucy and her family lived in a duplex on 5th street next to the Buddhist Church and behind the businesses on Jackson Street.. She worked in the various local businesses such as Shuei-do Manju Shop and Tom and Mary’s, which was a cafe “with the best hamburgers” next to Roy’s Gas Station.
She married a Hawaiian soldier in 1947. He was a military musician and she traveled to various places finally settling in Hawaii and had three children, two girls and a boy. She returned to San Jose in 1953 as a divorced mother of three young children and moved in with her father to the duplex on 5th Street where the family still lived. Lucy worked seven days a week at the various businesses on Jackson Street.
She ultimately got a permanent job at 4th Street Pharmacy. She became well known as the postal clerk at the old fashioned Pharmacy with a food counter where she got to know customers who lived or worked in the Japanese town area which included San Jose City Hall and police department. She served a variety of sandwiches accompanied by ruffled potato chips and flower cut pickles. Regulars felt that the best items were the shakes, but Coca Cola with chocolate syrup was another hot item. She worked there for over 35 years until it closed in 1992.
She never learned to drive and was an avid walker. She even walked to the bowling alley from 20th and Jackson to 4th Street bowl after retirement.
She was a familiar face at 4th Street Bowl from the late 1950s until she retired from bowling in her 80s. She always wanted to bowl until she was 90 so she could have a birthday celebration at the bowling alley.
So on her 100th birthday we had a family celebration on November 3 at the bowling alley. On November 5 we went to the Senior Nisei Bowling League to celebrate her birthday with cake. Some people who no longer bowl dropped by.
She became known in the late 50’s and during the 60’s as “the left handed petite bowler with the ponytail”. In the 1960’s she was one of 4 bowlers in California who specially qualified to bowl BPAA All Star Bowling Tournament. It was the only professional tournament she bowled in realizing as a single mother of 3, she could not turn pro. But she continued her amateur bowling in many tournaments and garnered many awards. She bowled both in the Nisei leagues and the Women’s bowling league.
She has kept herself very busy by enjoying many artistic crafts at Yu-Ai Kai and has done a lot of traveling. She took a solo trip to the East coast by train which she is very proud of. She would take the bus to BART and BART to Berkeley then walk up the hill to her grandson’s dorm to deliver bento for her grandson and his roommates at the college. She often encouraged friends to take day trips with her. She enjoys Korean dramas and went to Korea where she met a Korean Actor. She lived alone during the pandemic and relied on Yu-Ai Kai and relatives for meals. Today she lives in assisted living but looks forward to Friday lunches at Yu-Ai Kai because she loves her rice.
