Yoshigoro Ichinose History

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By all accounts Yoshigoro Ichinose was born and lived in the small village of Kurogi in Fukuoka prefecture. Immigration data, death notices,  miscellaneous other data and most importantly his family koseki all verify his place of residence and birth.
 

Koseki information

(A Koseki, or to use the full name, a Koseki Tohon is an official Japanese family register, kept by the local city office.  It records the family events, such as births, deaths, marriages, divorces, and so on, that take place in a given family.  It also may list the locations where some of those events took place.  In Japan, unlike the US and some other countries, there are  no official birth certificates, marriage certificates, death certificates, and so on.  All this information is listed on the Koseki document instead.

According to the koseki Yoshigoro was the eldest son of Isokichi (father) and Toku (mother).

On October 4th 1893 Yoshigoro resigned from being head of household which at some point his younger sister Shime took over.

On February 2nd 1917 Yoshigoro took back head of household from Shime due to her retirement.

When Yoshigoro died at 9:45 PM on 4/20/1940 Koichi (James) took over head of household.

This koseki ceased to be valid on 5/5/1945 with the approval of Kurume district. (although the information listed remains good) This may be due to redistricting vital records due to changes in municipalities in the area. 

As touched on in the introduction, Yoshigoro and Tome came to Hawaii on October 24th 1899. Yoshigoro was about 25-1/2 years old and Tome was 19. Osamu, their only child at the time was 1-1/2 years old.

Oral History has Yoshigoro working on a sugar plantations on the big island when he first arrived but there is no information to prove this. The earliest data is on the 1900 Federal Census on June 9th 1900 that does show them in Waialua Oahu on the north side. 

These early days in Hawaii we cannot  determine where he was with the conflicting and missing information but what we do know is that Michael Ichinose was born in Aiea in 1905 and Eugene and Sam were born in Mo'ili'ili in 1907 where he stayed until his passing.

Yoshigoro was a farmer by trade and he contracted with the sugar people. Early on in Aiea, during a typhoid fever epidemic at the plantation, Yoshigoro and Tome with Osamu on his back fled the plantation and settled in Kapa‘akea. Kapa‘akea district, which is situated mauka (toward the mountains) of the old Mo‘ili‘ili quarry, or within the Mo‘ili‘ili quarry area. That area is part of the University of Hawai‘i complex, athletic and dormitory. Here is where Yoshigoro raised eight boys and two girls on the farm. Here is where he started pig farming. He would raise the piglets and fatten them up and sell them to the slaughterhouse.

Beside raising the pigs, He raised vegetables and chickens. Farming was a lot of work especially at that time, it was work that involved working from morning till night. Yoshigoro would go out every day to collect the swill or garbage (for feeding pigs) in the residential and Downtown area. He would probably leave about five thirty or six o’clock in the morning and come back about ten o’clock in the morning.

He would travel by a horse and a wagon. The containers would be probably twenty-five-gallon containers, which he would deposit with the restaurants. And he would get five-gallon cans, kerosene cans, and then he would place these in various homes or residence. At times, one of the boys, during the weekends, would  go with him to help him in collecting the garbage.

Over the years his children would help out with the vegetables and other chores.

Samuel (Sad Sam) would tell of those days: 

     "Part of the work because when we had a lot of vegetables and when it was available, you know, vegetables spoil, so we had to get up early in the morning and pull the vegetables, wash ’em clean, grate it, and tie it up, and sell it in the morning before we go to school. And that was principally the job of me and my twin brother for a period of about five, six months. That doesn’t mean that it was everyday work, but it was work while it was available until we were about twelve years of age. And of course, we didn’t have any wagon. The only method we had was to place this tied-up vegetables in a basket, huge basket. And we would carry it on our shoulders with a long bow or pole. We’d have to go from the quarry area to the village below, Mo‘ili‘ili Village. But we did not cross King Street. In other words, we didn’t have time to cover a large area because we had to go to school. And after the grammar school in Mo‘ili‘ili, we’d go to the Japanese school in the afternoon. And then, come home and help Father on the farm. Now, when we have time, usually, we help to cook the garbage for the pigs. And of course, we had to cut the honohono grass-- usually, the honohono grass or the pigweed grass and supplement this with the garbage--and then feed the pigs. Of course, during the weekday, I mean, when we had time, we did a lot of work because we had to work in the garden. When we had to handle the pick and shovel, that was real work."

Yoshigoro’s wife Tome became ill and passed away 11/09/1917. Before she passed Yoshigoro went into hock sending Tome, his eldest child Osamu and the youngest Takiko to Japan where she received treatment. Unfortunately to no avail and after several months she returned to be with the kids. She was only 39 but after birthing 10 children and living the hard life of a farmer and housekeeper it took its toll.

By 1930 Yoshigoro was living with 3 of his sons.

On April 21st 1940 Yoshigoro passed away, he was 66 years old. 

Looking back on it the perception of Yoshigoro and Tome's life journey was one of hardship and eternal challenges. Only looking at the snapshots and highlights of their lives (like the ones shown on this website) gives us glimpses of their journey and is helpful to understand  how they lived and what happened to them. Yet in a way it is a false story unless you take into account that it is a non-ending evolution, a video verses a snapshot and that you must take into account “CONNECTIONS”. Everything is connected to everything else and everything we do affects everything around us, our environment, our families, our world. Think carefully about this… Yoshigoro and Tome left their home country (like many did back then) to start a new life in a different land and were met with challenges that they had to face. They did the hard work and did not give in. Mistakes were made, sometimes sadness came into their lives but again “snapshots”, the good times were every day as they lived their path. They brought 10 children into this world that blossomed into a extended Hawaiian family that eventually spread out and touched many others. These children had children of their own and so on. Many became professionals who helped hundreds, perhaps thousands of others. They served their communities in various industries in Hawaii and beyond. Every branch of the original siblings had their own wonderful stories.

Yoshigoro and Tome planted the seed of the Ichinose family in Hawaii and it did bloom. Today many of us do not  communicate with each other or even know of each other, yet those connections are there, for all our roots can be traced to Yoshigoro and Tome. There is s something of them in every one of us and every once in awhile it is good to contemplate those paths that brought us into being as we move forward into the future and thank them for their perseverance, hard work and family love.