Remembering Her Parents' Fight to Do What was Right
Mary Woodward's new book about her parents' defense of JAs during WWII needs help with funding to complete its publication.
Mary Woodward has always been a history buff. She majored in it in college and taught the subject for a few years afterwards. But she also knows her family is an intricate part of American history, especially in her native Bainbridge Island, Washington.
"I have the Woodward name, which is revered on Bainbridge Island," said Mary, 62, about her parents Walt and Milly Woodward, one of the few newspaper publishers during World War II that took an editorial stance against the internment of Japanese Americans.
Mary was not born yet when her parents worked all night on Dec. 7, 1941 - after the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor - on a special edition of their Bainbridge Island Review to warn readers the next day against "blind, wild hysterical hatred" towards their JA neighbors. But she still feels the effects of her parents' actions.
There are physical reminders including her parents' many humanitarian and civil rights awards, and more ephemeral moments etched in her memory - in a bookstore she once saw a man tear up with emotion when she mentioned her name.
Now Mary is putting her famous name in her new book, "In Defense of Our Neighbors: The Walt and Milly Woodward Story," to tell her parents' story in the larger context of American history. She wants to honor her parents' legacy, but mostly she wants people to never forget about the WWII atrocities committed on the small island in the middle of Puget Sound.
"The strides we've made in informing the American people about the internment have been tremendous," she said. "But many people still don't know about it."
Behind the Newsprint
For years, community members encouraged Mary to write a book about her parents. After all, she could tell their life story from a perspective no one else had. The idea blossomed into action a few years ago when a group of Bainbridge Islanders decided to take on a daunting task - raise $190,000 to fund the creation of the book. To date, they've raised about $160,000 through donations and grants.
In this last stretch, they need help to complete the publication of the book.
If they can raise an additional $20,000, an anonymous supporter has promised to match the donations dollar for dollar, said Dr. Frank Kitamoto, president of the Bainbridge Island Japanese American community (BIJAC).
The 150-page book, filled with the Woodward's personal family photos, is complete and scheduled to go through its final edits this month. It's scheduled to be released in the fall by Fenwick Publishing. In it, Mary offers an intimate look at the couple behind the Review and charts the evolution of the island's JA community from its agricultural beginnings to the heartbreaking WWII evacuation and eventual resettlement.
Bainbridge Island's JAs were the first to be rounded up and evacuated to internment camps under President Franklin D. Roosevelt's Executive Order 9066.
To write the book, Mary spent three years pouring through archives and personal family records. Research was not easy, especially since major fires in 1948 and 1968 ravaged the Review office and archives.
It also didn't help that Walt and Milly were reluctant to think of themselves as heroes.
"It was nothing they preached about," said Mary, their youngest of three daughters. "My mom always liked to say, 'Well, anyone else in our position would have done the same.'"
But virtually no one else did.
In the early 1940s when the young couple first bought the Review, it was a weekly with a circulation of about 1,000. Walt left his job as a Seattle Times court reporter to run his own Bainbridge Island newspaper with his wife and first daughter, Carolyn Jane, by his side.
"They did everything together. There was no division of labor," said Mary, who acknowledged that most historical accounts have focused just on Walt.
But like the saying goes, behind every great man is a great woman. At the University of Washington, Milly majored in Oriental Studies and learned to speak Japanese fluently. She was also a fiercely intelligent woman who was in charge of the newspaper's finances.
Economically and emotionally, the couple was inextricably tied to the newspaper. Before Bainbridge Island became a destination for the wealthy, it was a small, tight-knit community. The Review office was no exception; people would often drop by to visit during coffee breaks, said Mary.
"We all worked there," she said about her older siblings Carolyn and Mildred. "We all got our hands dirty."
Dateline: Manzanar, Calif.
While many other newspapers fanned anti-Japanese sentiment, the Review was the only newspaper to stand by JAs for the entire duration of the war, said Kitamoto. The couple even hired young JA internment camp correspondents to keep Bainbridge Islanders updated on what was happening to their friends and neighbors.
Before the war, Paul Ohtaki worked at the Review cleaning the office while he was still attending Bainbridge High School. But with E.O. 9066, his job titled changed.
"I was never a journalist," said Paul, 84, an MIS veteran and JACL Thousand Club member.
For his first assignment, he was told to write about the journey to Manzanar. Walt arranged for a U.S. soldier to pick up the article and send it through the Associated Press wires. Paul and his family arrived at the desolate camp in Central California on April 1. His article made it into the April 2 issue.
"Each week, I would send articles about what happened to the Bainbridge group."
His articles were mostly about births, deaths and marriages. Once Paul ran out of ideas and sent Walt a copy of the Manzanar Free Press, which was not well received.
"Dear Lazybones," Walt wrote in a scolding letter. "Come, come my good man, I find the 'Manzanar Free Press' to be fine reading but where in the hell has my Manzanar correspondent gone?"
"He didn't want the people on the island to forget us," said Paul, who created a scrapbook titled "It Was the Right Thing to Do!" filled with his newspaper clippings and personal correspondences with Walt and Milly.
Other camp correspondents included Sada Omoto, Tony Koura and Sa Nakata.
"At the time, I was 16. I didn't realize the importance. As I grew older, I began to recognize the importance of what Woodward did during and after the war," said Tony, 81, also an MIS veteran.
The Review's position on the internment prompted businesses to pull their ads and readers to cancel their subscriptions, said Mary. Her parents also feared physical violence, but they still "did what they thought was right."
"Because Walt and Milly stuck their necks out, other people who supported us were able to come forward," said Frank.
Preserving a Legacy
Walt and Milly's bravery won them many awards including JACL's first Edison Uno "Dove of Peace Award" in 1986. Walt was also the inspiration for David Guterson's novel, "Snow Falling On Cedars," which was adapted for the big screen in 1999.
Their story has been told many times, but never so intimately.
"It's very well written and from the heart," said Tony about "In Defense of Our Neighbors."
It's important to remember the legacy of the JA internment especially since the Sept. 11th terrorist attacks have reproduced a lot of old WWII sentiment, said Mary. Last August, the FBI launched an investigation of two unidentified South Asian male ferry riders because they were taking photos.
"How is that different from what happened during WWII?" said Mary.
For the last 10 years, BIJAC has been working with other community and city groups to build a JA memorial. Plans for the Nidoto Nai Yoni ("Let It Not Happen Again") memorial include a "story wall" engraved with the names of all 272 Bainbridge Island evacuees. Construction was slated to begin this spring, but funding problems have postponed the project.
A request for state appropriations failed to pass, but help could soon come from the federal government. The Senate on April 10 approved a massive public land bill to expand the boundaries of the Minidoka Internment National Monument to include Nidoto Nai Yoni.
Mary can't wait. Too many JAs have passed away already, so she plans to donate most of the proceeds from her book sales towards the memorial.
"I want that wall built."
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