Kimiki Oki Photo
Kimiko Danae Oki passed away Wednesday, March 6, 2024. She was 101.
Kimi was born on September 10, 1922 to Jukichi and Kiyo Hamasaki at a house near 8th Avenue and Yesler Way in Seattle. Kimi was their third child and first and only daughter. She attended and graduated from Bailey Gatzert Elementary School and Broadway High School. In high school, she loved attending dances, biking around Green Lake, and ice skating, and she was active in the Seattle Buddhist community.
Following the bombing of Pearl Harbor by Japan, Kimi—a natural born American citizen—was one of 125,000 people of Japanese ancestry forcibly relocated from their homes. In 1942, she and her family were incarcerated at the Minidoka War Relocation Center. In the single suitcase she was allowed to bring, she packed her ice skates along with her clothes and other necessities. To escape the persistent dust at Minidoka, she lived for one year in Twin Falls, Idaho, working as a housekeeper. Afterward, she returned to live and work in “camp” as a typist, earning $12 per month.
She married Kiyoto Bob Oki—her high school sweetheart—in a Minidoka mess hall on July 14, 1945. Their friends and family pooled their sugar rations to make them a wedding cake and the newlyweds traveled via bus to celebrate their honeymoon in Salt Lake City. After the war, she and Bob returned to Seattle and worked tirelessly (she as a secretary, he for the U.S. Postal Service) to provide for their extended family of six, eventually saving enough money to move from a tiny two-room apartment to their own home.
Their marriage was blessed with three children—Scott Oki (Laurie), Robert Oki (Pearl), and Marsha Shiyama (Mike); five grandchildren: David Shiyama (Joanna), Erin Shiyama Hoffman (Bob), Alexander Oki, Nicholas Oki, and Elisabeth Callan Oki; and one great-grandson: Wesley Hoffman. All survive her. She was preceded in death by her parents, parents-in-law Kitaro and Shizuno Oki, husband (whom she loved for more than 69 years of marriage before his peaceful death in 2014), older brothers Katsumi and Shigemi, and younger brother Tomio.
For over a century, Kimi was a force of love, warmth, kindness, and calm to family, friends, and strangers alike. She was the older sister who’d spring troublemaking Tomio from laundry room timeouts. She would be welcomed by a chorus of “hi Grandma” whether she was entering her favorite restaurant, cafe, or Nordstrom department (even though her diminutive 4’7″ stature could make her difficult to spot). In perhaps the only documented incident of its kind, she may have uttered a cross word to Putsy, the neighborhood dog who ate one of her famous blackberry pies that she’d left out, cooling on the back porch milk box.
Kimi was an active community volunteer and donor. She played an instrumental role in the formation of the Imperials Drum and Bugle Corps, leaving an indelible mark on countless lives through her passion and dedication. Later, she and Bob supported local charities like the Boy Scouts of America, Seattle Children’s Hospital, and Densho.
She was a model of humility, selflessness, and graceful aging. She never complained, even as she persevered through the decades with a cruel arthritis in her hands. Though this eventually prevented her from indulging in her cooking passion, it never robbed her of her hearty appetite for sushi, spam musubi, or her favorite McDonald’s vanilla soft serve and coffee. She lived in her home on the shores of Lake Washington until her death.
In lieu of flowers, the family kindly requests donations to Seattle Children’s Hospital in Kimi’s honor. She leaves behind a legacy of patiently scrawled birthday cards, needlessly brief voicemails, and love, pure love.
Sponsored by Oki’s family.