By Peggy Studivant

We were standing next to each other waiting to unfurl a banner between us for the 17th of May Parade. After the Nordic Heritage Museum group moved into position Elaine Ike said to me, “Do you know what’s going to happen to Webster School after the museum moves?”

Her question to me, and what she revealed next took me on a weeklong journey into Ballard history, into a chapter that I didn’t know had existed, and into a state my friend and fellow writer Sheila Kelly calls, “Research Rapture.”

I don’t know Elaine Ike well. Along with another woman I’ve recently met as part of Seattle Green Spaces Coalition there has not been time for learning backstories, as one usually does in budding friendships. We meet to strategize, agreeing that we hope that when we are old we can sit down as friends in open spaces that we have been able to keep from development.

Before our parade route struggle to keep the banner taut between us Elaine Ike asked if I knew about the Japanese flowering cherry trees that were a gift to Webster Elementary from the first Japanese-American family to live north of the Ship Canal. By coincidence, her son and his family now live in the home that was owned by the Matsudas on NW 69th Street, from 1926-1988.

In celebrating the Scandinavian roots of Ballard it’s easy to ignore what’s not as visible. Whether or not in writing there were forces and actual covenants to keep non-whites from living or doing business in Ballard. A Japanese-American family owning a home in Ballard before, through, and after World War II is still noteworthy. Elaine forwarded the article written by Scott Edward Harrison for the Seattle’s Japanese newspaper “The North American Post,” published in November 2009.

A week later Scott “Eddy” Harrison and I walked around the old Webster School in the gentle warmth of early evening sunshine and a slight breeze. Through open windows we could hear applause. Nordic Heritage Museum was having its annual celebration dinner for volunteers.

“There were three trees,” Eddy told me, “But I’ve only ever been able to find two.”

It’s hard to explain how exciting it can feel to discover connections and coincidences. To meet someone who knew the original owner of an older house and reveals even one story from within its walls. To look at a tree and learn its history…how many times have I been to Webster but never known it had this link? The Matsuda were able to return to their home after wartime internment in Minidoka because their neighbors looked after their home and belongings. A librarian in the East Asia Studies Department at the University of Washington Mr. Harrison had sent me a complete copy of his paper, “Japanese in Ballard, 1900-1942.”

In the week between when I first heard about the trees and met Mr. Harrison at the school grounds I had walked outside the house where the Matsudas once lived, and realized I knew their former neighbors. I had learned that after first living in Ballard because of Sakaye Matsudas employment for a mill owner that he and his wife owned AM Cleaners around the corner from where I live. The longtime dream I share with others to create a tribute the Sunset Hill community in the former Sunset Hill substation took on even more significance, the past becoming richer. The Matsudas had become part of the community before the war, and were able to come home after their unfortunate incarceration.

Librarian Eddy Harrison grew up in Ballard, and now lives here once again. He was surprised when asked about a Japanese colony in Ballard. In addition to other later businesses he learned of a Japanese-owned business, a curio shop on Ballard Avenue, as early as 1903. A Webster, Monroe and Ballard High graduate youngest Matsuda daughter Katherine was born in 1926 and now lives with her husband in Battle Ground, Washington. Harrison said of speaking with her, “Exceptionally nice,” he said, “the kindest people you could imagine.”

The former neighbors of the Matsuda home recalled noting that despite a period of neglect after 1988 there were still exceptional plantings, distinctive of the Japanese gardener that Sakaye Matsuda was: a Gingko, hazelnuts, orchids that spread and that she took with her to her next home and cherishes today.

Meanwhile in the house on NW 69th another Japanese-American family lives there again; the Ike children play in the park by Webster and attend school in what used to be James Monroe Junior High. In 2009 when Eddy Harrison first went looking for these flowering cherry trees he found a description from 2005 in Green Lake Japanese Community 1900-1942, “Two of the three cherry trees are still standing on the old school grounds. One is in robust condition and the other is suffering, however they survive as a reminder of the Matsuda children who attended the school.”

Now the Seattle school district plans to reclaim the school. But what was written ten years ago is still true; one tree by the old entrance is healthy. The suffering cherry tree is still suffering, but standing, as though it must stand guard to remind us to look for the history hidden in its roots.