Yoshio Takata
28 May 1919--11 Jan. 2005
Yoshio Takata was born May 28, 1919, in Berkeley, California, the fourth child and second son of Fukuyo (Watanabe) and Ryoichi Takata. When he was about 4 years old, his family moved to San Jose. His youth was spent on several farms with his family in the Berryessa area of San Jose. He attended Berryessa School and Roosevelt Junior High School. In 1938, he graduated from San Jose Technical High School.
After Pearl Harbor in 1941, his family moved to Auburn in an unsuccessful attempt to avoid being interned. Yosh first went to Tule Lake with his family, but spent little time in the relocation camps. For two years, he worked on farms and in canneries in Idaho, Montana, Oregon, and all across the West. He remembered canning peas and tomatoes with Tom Ichikawa in Utah. In Colorado, he decided it was easier to have an American name and chose "Dick" which became his unofficial middle name.
He was drafted in 1944 and went to boot camp in Blanding, Florida. In 1945, he was stationed at Camp Mead, Maryland. He then went to language school in Fort Snelling, Minnesota, where he was trained in military intelligence. He was preparing to go overseas, but his mother campaigned to get him out of the army citing family hardship.
Yosh had begun dating Ruth Santo before the war, but they were separated for more than two years while she was interned in Heart Mountain, Wyoming. When Heart Mountain closed, Ruth's parents gave their blessing for her to go to Minnesota to marry Yosh. They were married on August 18, 1945, three days after VJ Day, by a Justice of the Peace in Minneapolis. They had no church, no family, no reception, no photographer, no fancy wedding dress, and no honeymoon. After Yosh was discharged, they moved to Colorado to join other members of the Takata family who had settled there after leaving the internment camps. But they soon decided to return to San Jose where they joined Ruth's parents who were leasing a farm on the corner of Murphey and Old Oakland Highway. Lynn was born there in August of 1946.
By the time Keith was born in 1950, Ruth's parents had moved to a new farm and Yosh had taken over the lease on the thirty acre Murphy Avenue "ranch." They had also moved into the farm house they would occupy for more than twenty years. In 1955 the wife of Yosh's brother Mas (Tsuyako) passed away, and the Takata families who had been living in Denver began to return to San Jose. Two of Yosh's siblings and his parents stayed with them for varying periods during this time of transition. Eventually Yosh's parents joined them permanently, occupying a small house of their own on the ranch.
Yosh farmed the Murphy Avenue ranch from 1948 to 1975. In 1969, he bought one acre of the 30 acre farm they had been leasing and built a substantial new house. From 1976 until his retirement in 1984, he worked for the San Jose Produce Market. They kept ungodly hours for almost ten years, but this job allowed him to have a pension and other benefits.
Soon after retiring, Yosh and Ruth sold their house on Murphy and moved to Milpitas. Their acre is now part of a commercial center that includes a selection of the most common national and regional chains including Starbucks, McDonalds, Jamba Juice, Hollywood Video and Kinkos. The land they farmed is covered with multi-story apartments.
In retirement, Yosh enjoyed fishing, trips to Nevada, and bowling as well as spending time with his family. His first great-grandchild Megan was born in 2003, about the time that Yosh's health first started to deteriorate. Megan never failed to bring a smile to his face even when he was ill in the hospital.
Bob Takata (nephew, writing in a letter to Yosh that he never saw): I know how difficult it was for you to take Eva and me in with the pressures of raising your own family and running the farm. I cherish the memories of the time I spent with you and Aunty. They were the first happy family memories after my Mom died. Thank you.
Ben Takemoto (nephew, writing to Bob Takata): Remember when your car broke down on Highway 1 south of Big Sur? I asked Uncle to borrow his pickup. Without hesitation, he let me use it, rented a trailer, and picked up the car. That's how he was-always helping everyone in need. What a generous person he was. We will all miss him.
Eva Takata Yamamoto (niece): I want to thank you for always being there for me. I'm sorry that I never told you how much your love and support meant to me. You helped me through the hard times. You helped me bury both my mother and then my father. You gave us a place to live when we moved to California. Your support was endless. You even agreed to deliver gift baskets for me when we opened our gift basket store. One of my most cherished memories was seeing you pull out of the driveway with balloons flying from the windows. You are my role model. You taught me how to love and support those around you. Thank you.
Lynn Ritter (daughter): My father instilled in us a love of nature which we nurture to this day. I have vivid memories of two examples, both of which involve birds and tractors. My father had various kinds of farm equipment to run his farm. One was a tractor which he used to make rows and fertilize vegetables. This particular tractor had two canisters for the fertilizer which sat on either side of the front. We were allowed to ride in the canisters while my father drove the tractor up and down the cultivated rows. At the end of the farm which ran alongside Murphy Avenue, the family from whom we rented the farm had planted a row of almond trees. These trees often housed bird nests in the spring, when the delicate and fragrant pink blossoms bloomed. When my father drove the tractor to the end of the rows nearest the trees, he often stopped the tractor so we could see the bird nests from our perches in the canisters of the tractors. The other tractor was a Caterpiller used to cultivate the fields after harvesting. This tractor we were not allowed to ride. We didn’t have abundant wildlife on the farm, but occasionally a pheasant would build a nest on the ground in the tangle of the taller vegetables. When it came time to plow a field with pheasant residents, my father would carefully cut a wide swathe around the nest so as not to disturb the pheasants. In the end, I don’t know if it did any good because the pheasants probably got scared away anyway. But my father being so kind showed me how much he cared and how important it was to respect nature.
Keith Takata (son): Dad was a simple and straightforward man. He did not have a formal education, but he was very smart and always curious. In another generation, he would have gone to college. Dad was a man of few words. We used to count the number of words he used to make a haircut appointment: "Clark," "Yosh," "me and my boy," "OK." Dad never really talked to us or tried to tell us how to live, but he taught us much by example. Most importantly, Dad taught us the importance of love and family: his children, his grandchildren, his great granddaughter, but most of all his wife, Ruth.
Bob Takata (nephew): As you know the men in the Takata family are men of few words, including Oji-san, my Dad and Uncle Yosh. But there was one exception. I was 14 years old when Uncle Yosh was teaching me to drive. Uncle Yosh owned a 1952 Blue GMC Pickup, his pride and joy. He taught me how to drive the GMC pickup by driving around the ranch. One day we loaded the GMC with crates of cabbage stacked three to four tiers high; the pickup was overloaded and top heavy. We tied the load down then Uncle Yosh said “OK Bob, I think you are ready to drive on the public road.” “Wow,” I said excited, jumping on to the driver’s seat. The trip to deliver the load of cabbage was about two miles away North on Murphy Road and then a 90 degree right turn on Lundy Road. Uncle Yosh helped me through the gears. This was the first time I drove in third gear; we were moving fast and coming to the right turn at Lundy Road. Still in third gear and not slowing down, I turned the steering wheel to the make the turn at Lundy. The pickup leaned up on two wheels with the top heavy load. Well, you can imagine Uncle Yosh said a lot of words to me in that one second to get the pickup back on the road.