Matsuura Family Collection
Finding aid created by Christine Chan.
Japanese American National Museum
© 2022
100 North Central Avenue
Los Angeles, CA 90012
Email: collections@janm.org
URL: http://www.janm.org/
Japanese American National Museum. All rights reserved.
Finding aid for the Matsuura Family Collection
Collection number: 2003.119
Title: Matsuura Family collection
Dates: 1880-1987 (inclusive)
Dates: 1904-1951 (bulk)
Collection number: 2003.119
Collection Size:
16.2 linear feet (18 boxes, 9 flat files)
Repository:
Japanese American National Museum (Los Angeles, Calif.)
Los Angeles, California 90012
Creator: Matsuura Family
Abstract: This collection includes materials collected by Melba Yonemura Matsuura, primarily dating from 1904-1951. The bulk of the
collection are letters exchanged with her second husband George Matsuura during the war, photos documenting the first 35 years
of Melba’s life, family and friends, and ephemera related to her time in Granada Relocation Center (Amache). The collection
also includes scrapbook pages, high school yearbooks, newspaper clippings, a gavel, and two silver spoons.
Physical location: Japanese American National Museum. 100 North Central Avenue, Los Angeles, CA 90012.
By appointment only. Please contact the Collections Management and Access Unit (collections@janm.org). Advanced notice is
required.
All requests for permission to publish, reproduce, or quote from materials in this collection must be submitted to the Collections
Management and Access Unit at the Japanese American National Museum (collections@janm.org).
[Identification of item], Matsuura Family Collection. 2003.119, Japanese American National Museum. Los Angeles, CA.
Donated by Walter Matsuura in 2003.
Items initially described by staff. Background written by Karin Higa. Additional background details, description, and a finding
aid was created in 2022 by Christine Chan.
Family:
Tokomatsu (Tokumatsu) Yonemura (1881/1882-1946) – Father of Melba and one-time husband to Nellie (Camille)
Nellie (who later went by Camille) Hessling Yonemura Ludwig Goldenberg Merkle (1886/1887-1954) – Wife of Tokomatsu
Tillie (Matilda) Meyer Hessling (1866-1951) – Mother of Nellie (Camille)
Kate (Katie) Hessling (1884-1965) – Daughter of Tillie, older sister of Nellie (Camille)
Melba Yonemura Hamamoto Matsuura (1907-1988) – Daughter of Tokomatsu and Nellie (Camille)
Earl Kent Ludwig (1910-1964) – Son of Nellie (Camille) and her second husband, John Ludwig, and younger half-brother to Melba
Dorothy Kent Goldenberg Steele (1912-1982) – Daughter of Nellie (Camille) and her second husband, John Ludwig, and younger
half-sister to Melba
Walter Wataru Hamamoto (1906-1982) – First husband of Melba Yonemura
George Kazuyoshi Matsuura (1910-1991) – Second husband of Melba
Walter (Wally) Hamamoto Matsuura (b. 1931) – Son of Walter and Melba and step-son of George
Tokomatsu Yonemura (1881/1882-1946) was born to a wealthy family in Kumamoto-ken in Kyushu, Japan. He arrived in the United
States in 1895 around the age of 15, where he possibly completed some years of additional education at Caldwell College and
Yale University. In 1904, he was hired to work at the St. Louis World's Fair for family friend Kokichi Mikimoto, founder of
the luxury pearl company Mikimoto. There, he met Nellie Hessling (1886/1887-1954), a German American from St. Louis, MO, who
he married in 1906. Their daughter Melba (1907-1988) – named for Australian singer Nellie Melba – was born in May of 1907
and was noted with great fanfare in the St. Louis press, as she was the first biracial Asian and white baby born in the Midwest.
Tokomatsu and Nellie divorced around 1908/1909, although her mother Tillie (1866-1951) and sister Katie (1884-1965) remained
in the Yonemura household with Tokomatsu and Melba. Shortly after Tokomatsu and Nellie divorced, Nellie married a naval officer
in Seattle named John M. Ludwig (ca. 1882-1921) and gave birth to Earl Kent Ludwig (1910-1964) and Dorothy Kent Ludwig Steele
(1912-1982) in Canada. After Nellie left Ludwig (and daughter Dorothy in his care), she married a Seattle dentist by the name
of Goldenberg (first name unknown). Her son Earl went to live with relatives in Michigan. In the late 1910s, the Yonemura
household with Tillie and Katie Hessling moved from Chicago to California after Tokomatsu’s auction business failed. In the
meantime, Nellie took Goldenberg’s Cadillac and her daughter Dorothy south from Seattle to Los Angeles, where she temporarily
moved back in with Tokomatsu, Melba, Tillie, and Katie.
The 1920s were spent in Los Angeles, where Melba graduated from Jefferson High School. Her mother Nellie – now going by Camille
– moved to Culver City and found work at MGM Studios, inspiring her to attempt fashioning Melba into an “Oriental Clara Bow.”
However, because Camille did not want people to know she’d been married to an Asian man or had a young adult daughter, Melba
Yonemura was given the name “Melba Dupre” and the false identity of Camille’s younger sister. However, this scheme was foiled
by the presence of Eddie Imazu, a Nisei working for production designer Cedric Gibbons, who knew Melba’s true identity as
the biracial daughter of Tokomatsu and Camille.
In September 1930, Melba wed Walter Wataru Hamamoto (1906-1982), a wealthy Nisei student from Honolulu, HI, in Orange County.
From September 1930 through the end of February 1931, she lived with Walter at his family home on Young Street in Honolulu,
where she quickly became unhappy due to friction with her more traditional mother-in-law. Melba, who by then was pregnant,
asked her grandmother Tillie to send for her to return to Los Angeles, and once back home, she gave Walter an ultimatum: either
move back to Los Angeles or she would leave him. In August 1931, Melba gave birth to their son Walter Wataru Hamamoto Jr.
(“Wally”) in Los Angeles while Walter Sr. chose to remain in Honolulu.
In 1936, Walter married Irene Sueko Noguchi (1917-2001), later having four children with her. Meanwhile, Melba journeyed
to Japan that summer to meet up with George Kazuyoshi Matsuura (1910-1991), a talented Nisei baseball pitcher born in Bellevue,
Washington, who had been contracted to play for Nagoya’s team during the inaugural season of the Japanese Baseball League
(now known as Nippon Professional Baseball). Previously, George played on semi-pro baseball teams in Los Angeles, including
the Japanese Grand Central Market team and the L.A. Nippons, where he once pitched with his older brother Frank (1908-1967).
He had traveled to Japan for baseball five years earlier, in 1931, to participate in a three-month tour with the Nippons as
they played against local amateur baseball teams throughout the country.
On August 29, 1936, George and Melba married in Nagoya, Japan; Wally took on the Matsuura surname. George ended the season
with a 3.00 ERA and the Matsuuras returned to Los Angeles, the extended family renting a number of houses on and near Crenshaw
Boulevard. For a time, Melba worked for the Asahi Chrysler agency in Little Tokyo but by 1938, she worked as a dental nurse
at a practice on Crenshaw Boulevard and Slauson Avenue, and George worked in managerial positions. It was at this time that
– frustrated by automobile corporations buying up the lots their rented houses sat on – the Matsuuras purchased a home in
the West Adams neighborhood for about $7,500.
George and Melba were an elegant and dashing couple, who socialized with many of the Japanese American elite, attending dinner
dances at such places as the Biltmore Hotel. Among their friends were Patrick and Lily Okura, Japanese American civil rights
leaders. In December 1940, Melba was selected to be one of five “princesses” of the Central Japanese Association Rose Parade
float, “Cherry Blossom Time in Washington” through a competition that was judged by a panel of white Americans. Melba’s fellow
princesses were Lili Arakawa (later Okura), Shizue Kobayashi, Emiko Hino, and Freda Fukuda; the five wore costumes designed
by Yumi Ogura. The float was awarded the “Theme Prize,” one of the prestigious designations given by the Tournament of Roses
committee.
In 1942 with the issuance of Executive Order 9066, Tokomatsu, George, Melba, and Wally were forcibly removed to Santa Anita
Assembly Center and then on to the Amache (Granada) concentration camp in Colorado. They were spared the loss of their home
and possessions, as Tillie and Katie Hessling remained in the family home throughout the war. In October of 1943, George volunteered
for the U.S. Army, and he immediately departed Amache for Fort Snelling, where he joined the Military Intelligence Service
(MIS) and became an interpreter for Lieutenant General Joseph May Swing of the 11th Airborne Division, which was later sent
to Japan in 1945 by General Douglas MacArthur.
In January 1944, after much back-and-forth with the War Relocation Authority (WRA), Melba and Wally were allowed to return
to Los Angeles on a military permit. Tokomatsu could not due to his citizenship status and instead moved to Chicago, where
he took employment at the Stevens Hotel, an establishment he and Camille had regularly visited during their marriage. In Los
Angeles, the Matsuura-Yonemura-Hessling family played host to many of George’s military friends who visited on their leave.
After some time with the military in postwar Japan, George was discharged in November 1945 and returned home. Tokomatsu was
also able to return to Los Angeles, before passing away in late 1946.
Wally went on to attend Los Angeles City College and spent some time in the early 1950s with the U.S. Army. George and Melba
kept active social calendars, attending a number of parties in the immediate years following their incarceration – including
attending events for the 1951 “Go For Broke” film premiere. The couple also maintained involvement in the Nisei Veterans Association
(NWA), with Melba serving as the NWA Women’s Auxiliary president in 1950. The Matsuuras often traveled around the United States
to sightsee and visit with family and friends, regularly visiting places like Las Vegas, Hawaii, and local California spots.
In 1975, Melba retired and the family took a cruise vacation around the Caribbean the following year. Melba died in Los Angeles
on January 24, 1988, at the age of 80, with George following on February 2, 1991, only a few days short of his 81st birthday.
Wally, who never married, continued to live in the Matsuura family West Adams home, remaining involved with the local community
and advocating for the preservation of the Kinney Heights neighborhood’s history.
This collection includes materials collected by Melba Yonemura Matsuura, spanning from the 1880 through the 1980s. The bulk
of the collection are photographs, letters, and paper ephemera dating from 1904 to 1951. The photographs include negatives,
loose photo album pages, and several photo albums; they document the first 35 years of Melba’s life and also include photos
of friends and family members, as well as Melba’s role as a “princess” for the Nikkei float in the 1940 Rose Parade and George
Matsuura’s baseball career during the 1930s. The letters are primarily from Melba’s second husband, George Matsuura, while
he was in the Military Intelligence Service from 1943-1945. Paper ephemera is mainly related to the Matsuuras’ time at the
Granada Relocation Center (Amache), such as camp programs, coupons, cards, invitations, and name tags. Also included are pamphlets
about the Nisei experience during the war, several yearbooks from George and Melba’s high school years, a scrapbook documenting
Melba’s singing career, some newspaper clippings, a gavel and two silver spoons.
JANM has other collections related to camp life at Amache as well as pre-war Japanese American baseball.
Original arrangement was preserved. Letters are arranged chronologically.
Matsuura, Melba Yonemura
Matsuura, George
Racially mixed families
Japanese Americans
Japanese American baseball players
Japanese Americans--Colorado--Amache--Social life and customs
Granada Relocation Center
Correspondence
Photograph albums
Photographs
Negatives (Photographs)
Ephemera--1920-1950