In the summer of 1942, Gen Sonoda and Matsumi Kanemitsu were roommates in the horse stables at Fort Riley, Kansas, the last army post of the horse cavalry. They had both volunteered to be in the army and had completed their basic training earlier that year. Along with other Japanese Americans, part of their job was to care for the 500 horses still living there, as the horse cavalry was being phased out and the mechanized cavalry beginning and Fort Riley became the training center for 125,000 soldiers.
Many evenings the post librarian saw them in the library. They were always out of their fatigues and carefully groomed in dress uniforms. While they respected the library as a place to be, to socialize, and to find out new things, there were some shananigans involving the librarian’s hat. Fifty years later just before he passed away Kanemitsu said he still had a snapshot of himself wearing it and reading an art magazine. At the same time Kanemitsu reminded her that she had introduced him to a book by Salvidor Dali which was an eye opener for him. He was fascinated by Dali and the Surrealism Movement. It was his introduction to his lifelong career as an artist. He also thanked her for her kindness to all the Japanese Americans who came to the library.
Besides cleaning stables, Gen Sonoda was assigned to clean the library in the evening. One evening he told the librarian that he was eligible for leave time and wanted to visit his parents who were in an internment camp. If he waited until pay day to get the money for the visit, his leave would have expired. She loaned him $75 ($1350 in today’s dollars) and her brown leather suitcases. Gen later returned the $75 and the suitcases, newly polished. These transactions began a correspondence that would last the next 70 years.
Before leaving Fort Riley for his next posting Kanemitsu gave the librarian five of his early attempts to create art. She contacted him years later to make sure he did not want them back, especially since some of his abstract works were selling for 6 figures. He said that was not necessary. One of the works was a portrait of Gen polishing his boots. This was not the last connection between the roommates in the stable. Years later Kanemitsu would discover that his bookkeeper was the sister of Gen, and that Gen had retired from the LA City Department of Water and Power. Gen had recently lost his mother with whom he had lived all his life. On her way to visit other friends in Los Angeles where she had gone to graduate school at USC, the librarian visited her Japanese American friends too. Kanemitsu passed shortly after that visit, but Gen would live another 20 years. He and the librarian would continue their correspondence at least annually. Around midnight in October 2012 riding in an ambulance, Gen made his last phone call to the librarian. He told her he was on his way to a hospital and thanked her again for her kindness. The librarian died about a year later.
[The librarian was my mother, Virginia Hennessy Freal. She started her library work at age 12 in Duluth, MN, and later in Holywood, Omaha, Havana, Fort Riley, Everett and Snohomish, WA. Although she officially retired from getting paid for her library work at 66, she continued to look for what she thought others might find interesting, helpful, delightful, and kind for 32 more years. Now almost 10 years after the passing of Gen and Virginia and 30 years after the passing of Kanemitsu, Kanemitzu’s first 5 paintings, including the portrait of Gen, are part of the Japanese American National Museum.]
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