Taro Kishi's Years at and Following Texas A&M
Taro’s "Roaring 20's" were spent at Texas A&M from 1922 through 1926 where he obtained a Bachelor of Science Degree in Agriculture Administration. He played on the championship 1925 - 1926 Varsity Football team as a blocking half-back. Attending games was a source of pride and enjoyment for his parents and other members of the Terry community. One such time, Taro's parents and the church ladies went to College Station to watch an A&M football game. At the game, Church ladies Miss Cleta Kennedy and Miss Eva Lane began cheering, jumping up and down, carrying on like typical football spectators! The elder Kishi were SHOCKED to see them act this way, since they were usually such demure & genteel Southern ladies at Terry Chapel.
After graduation, Taro assisted his father & my father, Tokuzo Hirasaki, the Operations Manager at Kishi Farms. Taro’s position was in Sales & Purchase. When rice production ceased, Taro helped in the selling of highland vegetable crops (cauliflower, lettuce, corn, melon, mainly cabbage) grown in the colony which were either sold locally to greengrocers in the Golden Triangle Area, shipped out wholesale by train car loads or a combination of both.
The year 1931 brought the end of Kishi Farm. However, the gallant struggle to save the farm is chronicled in a series of letters Taro wrote to his father, who was in Japan. To raise money for the farm, Taro went to work for Mitsui Limited, a Japanese shipping company, as a scrap iron inspector at various ports which include: New Orleans, Pensacola, Norfolk, VA & New York City. .
During his time as a Mitsui Limited worker, Taro met & married Mary Oni, a Japanese lady violinist, and lived in South Plain, NJ. But after Pearl Harbor 1941, U.S. authorities rounded up & questioned all Mitsui employees at Ellis Island, NY. He was photographed, finger-printed and required to carry an I.D. at all times. Following this, the young couple decided to return to Texas. Unfortunately, this marriage did not last but a few years. (My brothers still remember Aunt Mary baking cookies and pulling taffy for them, even if their time with her was short.)
The decades from 1940's through 1960's, Taro rice farmed acreage in Nome, Cheek, China, Sour Lake in Jefferson County.
Text from a presentation by Ida Hirasaki Bush to the Methodist Church in Vidor.