Discovering My Niiya Grandfather
I have happy memories of my grandfather Tomoshiro Niiya as my parents were constantly flying “home” to visit their families. Although he passed away when I was seven, I was fortunate to have spent time with him on the Big Island. We picnicked at the beach and he had an easy smile for me. I don’t remember him ever being unpleasant. It’s hard for me to picture him as a strict school principal or a shrewd businessman.
I’ve been told that my grandfather was not tall but in my memory he stands tall perhaps more so because he was slender. I know from my mother that he cultivated plants and would go fishing with my father. I believe that my grandfather smoked but I can’t quite picture him smoking or looking unhealthy.
Early Childhood
My grandfather was born on September 10, 1887 in Kinomoto-cho, Kumano-shi, Mie, Japan. I’ve learned that it was unusual for people from Mie prefecture to emigrate to Hawaii. He was the eighth child of 11 in the Shintani 新 谷 family. His childhood name might have been pronounced Asashiro Shintani.
My grandfather attended university before emigrating to Hawaii to join his older brother’s family. My grandfather’s brother changed the Shintani name to Niiya as he ran a store and “ya” means store in Japanese. My grandfather was an agent of the Japan Consulate in 1929 which was shortly before he married my grandmother.
My grandfather married my grandmother and had five children on the Big Island. He was 50 when he had my mother who was the middle child of five. My grandfather was a Japanese school principal before WWII. He was questioned by the FBI. The Japanese school closed and the family lost their housing. They lost another house in Kapoho after an eruption and moved to Pahoa in the 1960s. My grandfather passed away at 91 in Honolulu.
Kumano
My grandfather was born in the Kinomoto neighborhood of Kumano city, in the Mie prefecture of Japan. The town had a population of 5,000 during the Meiji era and roughly ten percent of the town was engaged in the fishing industry. During the 1960’s, the population was around 30,000, now it is closer to 20,000.
My great grandmother Rin Shintani was 41 and my great grandfather Masasuke Yamasaki was 38 when my grandfather was born. Three years before my grandfather was born, in 1884, my grandfather’s father helped to build the elementary school in Kinomoto.
My grandfather’s name suggests that he was a fourth son but he was a fifth son, his third eldest brother died before my grandfather was born. My grandfather’s elder brothers Kamematsu, Tokujiro, were 20, and 15 when my grandfather was born, sisters Kau and Fujie were 11; he also had another older sister, Fujie. Seichiro was 2. My great grandparents had a son, Minegoro, and another daughter, Yaeno after my grandfather.
My grandfather shared the second house with other children in the household including Minegoro, who was three years younger, and his eldest brother, Kamematsu’s children. My grandfather probably did not know his second eldest brother Tokujiro who went to Nagoya for college when my grandfather was young.
The family was wealthy and there might have been servants in the home that prepared meals for the family. The family ran one of four fish market operators in the area. The fish wholesale market financed the fishermen’s equipment. My grandfather liked to go fishing.
When my grandfather was about five years old, his elder brother Kamematsu married and had a son (Syouchi) and the second eldest, Tokujiro graduated from Nagoya Business School. Kamematsu went to a mountain community to run a branch store; it was about a 5 hour walk uphill to Nara prefecture. Tokujiro left to Hawaii when my grandfather was about 7 years old.
When he was about 11, his younger sister Yaeno passed away. Minogoro’s memoire says that English was taught in the fifth grade with handwritten books by the school principal.
By the time my grandfather graduated from primary school in 1901 at 13, his older brother had remarried twice and had had three children. I don’t know if the family lived in Kumano or the town that had the branch store.
My grandfather went fishing when he grew up in Japan. In 1903, when my grandfather was 15, his older brother Tokujiro passed away in Osaka. According to Uncle Takao, when Tokujiro was ill, my great grandfather asked my grandfather to assist Tokujiro’s family who were in Hawaii. However the timing seems to be off in that my grandfather would have been 14 or 15 during Tokujiro’s illness. His older brother Seichiro would have been 16 or 17; I’m not sure why Seichiro did not go to Hawaii. Seichiro later ran a second branch store in the mountains.
My grandfather graduated from middle school in Mie prefecture in 1904 at 16. At the time, only about ten percent graduated from middle school. Minegoro noted that he graduated in 1905 but middle schools in Japan are three years so this may have been an error. Minegoro attended middle school in Kobe and stayed with another family for four years. I’m not sure if my grandfather attended middle school while living in Kumano of if he also similarly had left home to attend middle school.
In 1905, Minegoro attended middle school and boarded at Reisei, he says that my grandfather helped him to find living quarters and order hats and uniforms, he would have been 17 at the time.
My grandfather attended college in Tokyo in 1906, at Senshoo. When Minegoro attended a Tokyo University, he stayed with his mother’s cousin’s family, Tamenosuke Minami. I wonder if my grandfather had also stayed there when he attended college. In those days, there was no train in Kumano, you could catch a train in Osaka.
Minegoro’s notes do not discuss high school, he only reported that my grandfather started at university in 1906. This does not seem right as he left to Hawaii at the beginning of 1907. He might have started Waseda in the fall of 1904. It doesn’t seem that he had attended college for very long and I wonder why he didn’t wait a few years to go to Hawaii so that he could graduate. The university system in Japan is elitist and competitive. I believe that most undergraduates graduated.
My Grandfather’s story in Hawaii (Niiya Grandfather Part II) is here.
More on my Grandfather’s family here.
And more on the Niiya family in Hawaii.
