Nellie Nakamura’s 107 years on this planet were framed by the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, the Great Depression, World War II, the first man on the moon, the arrival of the Internet and 9/11.
Still, friends and family members will remember the Los Altos resident, who died June 14, less for her longevity and more for her full life. It was a life marked by struggle, when she spent the World War II years in a Japanese American concentration camp in Wyoming, but mostly punctuated by poetry, gardening and loving relationships.
Mrs. Nakamura was born Dec. 20, 1902, in San Jose, a time when coach and buggy were commonplace. In fact, one of her first memories was a collision between her parents’ horse-drawn buggy and a train.
Mrs. Nakamura attended a one-room schoolhouse in Cupertino but left high school after a few years to care for her ailing mother. In 1921, she married Harry Nakamura, a Japanese native who had immigrated to America in 1916. She lost her American citizenship in the process, due to a U.S. law that dictated loss of citizenship for women who married foreigners. With the help of the future U.S. Sen. Alan Cranston (of Los Altos Hills), her husband later secured his citizenship, and hers was reinstated. The law was later repealed.
The Nakamuras opened a dry-cleaning business in Los Angeles that went bankrupt during the Great Depression. They moved to Mountain View to be near Mrs. Nakamura’s father. Their children, Margaret Emmy, David, Kenny and George were born and raised there.
After the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941, the Nakamura family was sent to an internment camp at the Santa Ana Raceway. They were later moved to Heart Mountain, Wyo., where Kenny died at age 11.
After the war ended in 1945, the family returned to Mountain View. In 1950, they moved into the house on Jordan Avenue where Mrs. Nakamura resided until her death. Daughter Margaret Cooper credited friends Josephine Duveneck, co-founder of Hidden Villa, and noted fiction writer Janet Lewis Winters for helping the Nakamuras overcome racial barriers. Winters bought the property, then resold it to the Nakamuras. Mrs. Nakamura and Winters were close neighbors as well as friends, with Winters living on nearby Portola Avenue.
“They could walk to each others’ houses,” Margaret recalled.
To commemorate her 100th birthday, her oldest son, David, contracted Shiz Siegal to write a biography of his mother’s life. The book, “A Century of Change,” is available at the Los Altos main library as well as the Los Altos History Museum.
Mrs. Nakamura was “feisty and had an independent spirit,” Margaret said. “She was a tomboy as a kid.”
Her interests included gardening and poetry. Margaret said Mrs. Nakamura began writing poetry after age 10. One of her poems was printed in the old San Jose Mercury Herald.
She also traveled. Even at age 83, Mrs. Nakamura could be spotted atop a camel in Egypt, and she meticulously chronicled a trip to Israel in a handwritten, spiral notebook.
Margaret said Mrs. Nakamura never lost her spark for life and didn’t let the obstacles she faced stop her.
Mrs. Nakamura kept her wit and charm until the very end, Margaret said, even regaling guests with jokes at her 107th birthday.
She is survived by her children, Margaret Emmy Nakamura Cooper of Santa Maria; David Nakamura of Fremont; and George Nakamura of Los Altos; six grandchildren and seven great-grandchildren.
