Koko - Joy

Koko Kawaguchi was born, Yoshiye Shimizu, April 24, 1917, on Bacon Island, California. She passed on peacefully in her home on February 27, 2020, surrounded by her family of loving friends and gentle caregivers.

Koko’s father, Kiyoshi Shimizu, , depending on the growing season, was a California crop farmer/traveling sumo wrestler. He chose Koko’s mother from several pictures sent from Japan. Koko’s mother was an herbalist and a healer whose courage and compassion helped shape Koko into an adventurous, loving person. For close to 103 years, Koko lived an inspirational life filled with delight and independence.

Koko will live on in the hearts of those privileged to witness her love of life. She loved all flowers equally, savored all food with glee, and was driven by the satisfaction she got in taking care of things herself. She approached each task and all friendships with excited anticipation and complete appreciation. Koko humbly denied her own magical ability to transform each moment into something special. “I am just ordinary, but things happen when I’m around.”

Koko was thirteen when her mother became ill. Her Mother, Mine, died when Koko was fifteen; Koko's only regret is that she didn't have more time with her mother. Koko cared for her three younger siblings until several years after she graduated from high school. In high school Koko adopted the American name Jeanette, after the famous Jeanette MacDonald.

In high school Koko adopted the American name Jeanette, after the famous Jeanette MacDonald. In her early twenties she was working in Hollywood as an errand girl for the movie director Richard Brooks, rubbing shoulders with famous actors including Mickey Rooney and Betty Davis. Richard Brooks gave her the nickname, Koko because it was easier to write on her paychecks.

During WWII she was interned in an American Japanese prison camp, stripped of her freedom, possessions and career, along with thousands of other Japanese Americans. Koko met Harry Kawaguchi, a US Army WWI veteran, who was also interned, in the detention camp.

Koko and Harry were married in Montana after being released from the internment camp, along with 17 men from the camp, to work in the sugar beet fields of Montana. The US Army attempted to recruit Koko as a Japanese interpreter during the war and in the process brought Harry and Koko to Des Moines. She didn’t join the army but she and Harry stayed in Des Moines.

Japanese people weren’t treated well in Des Moines, during WWII, regardless of their citizenship -- but Koko and Harry found work and won the hearts of many influential families. Koko’s flower design skills helped Fae Huttenlocker at Better Homes and Garden magazine showcase Iowa as a ‘welcome place’ for Japanese.

Harry died in 1966, leaving Koko with a seventeen-year-old daughter, Dodie. “I’ve rowed my own canoe ever since,” she said.

Extensive travels deepened Koko’s love of people around the world. Koko worked into her nineties as a freelance floral designer. She gave many lectures through the years to educate people about the internment camps, without a trace of bitterness on her part. “It would only poison me to be bitter. I look for the good and just am so happy to have my friends.” She was the kind of woman who attracted many fascinating people.

When asked how she survived those times she says, “I still think about it often, how worried I was about the rest of my family. It doesn’t do any good to dwell on it; I just turn the page.”

She owned a lovely home, a 1917 converted streetcar station, filled with generous hospitality and adorned with plants, flowers and Japanese artifacts. It served as a home away from home for travelers, foreign exchange students, family and friends.

Koko helped secure some letters for the Hype Park Museum that Eleanor Roosevelt Memorial contributions may be donated to the Kawaguchi Japanese Student Trust Fund, founded by Koko.