Mary Nomura at her 100th birthday party. (Photo: Courtesy of the Nomura Family)
Mary Kageyama Nomura, who at 15 was incarcerated during World War II at Manzanar — one of the U.S. government’s 10 War Relocation Authority Centers built to detain people of Japanese ancestry — but whose in-demand vocal skills resulted in her getting nicknamed the Songbird of Manzanar died at her home in Huntington Beach, Calif., on April 6. She was 100.
The fifth of the six children of Tomitaro and Machi Kageyama, Nomura was born in Los Angeles. Mary’s natural music talents were cultivated by her music teacher mother, who would put her daughter onstage to perform with her adult music students.
Both of her parents, however, would die before Mary was 7. Thanks to her older siblings, Frank and Fumi, however, Mary and her other siblings were able to stay together.
The parentless family’s lives would become disrupted yet again, however, with America’s entry into WWII, and within months they found themselves imprisoned, along with tens of thousands of other ethnic Japanese living along the Pacific Coast when Mary was 15.
It was at Manzanar when Nomura’s vocal abilities came to the fore, when she would become an in-demand vocalist at camp functions. It was also at Manzanar where she would meet her future husband, Shiro Nomura.
Post-incarceration, they launched Shi’s Fish Mart, a Japanese grocery store, one of the first Asian grocery stores in Orange County. Mary and Shi were married for 55 years.
Although she never pursued a professional singing career, the Nomura was an in-demand performer at various Japanese American community events over the years. Nomura sang at 2015’s Great Nisei Reunion II, accompanied by the Tex Beneke Orchestra, and at 2017’s Great Nisei Reunion III.
Nomura was predeceased by her husband, Shi, and is survived by her sons, Alan (Yoshiko) and Norman (Dorothy); daughters Mallory Saul (Tom), Lisa Ishibashi (Gerald) and Nina Williams (Larry); 12 grandchildren, 11 great-grandchildren, sister Mae Kakehashi, half-brother Bill Fukawa, and many nieces and nephews.
