usuke “Harry” Kimura was born in Nagasaki, Japan in 1880. He left home at the age of thirteen and traveled around Japan and China learning to be a cook. He was hired onto the U.S.S. Arizona, where he prepared meals for President Theodore Roosevelt, who was on board. Roosevelt was so impressed with Harry’s cooking that he gave him a letter stating he could stay in the United States as long as he wished. Harry entered the United States in San Francisco just before the earthquake and fire of 1906, and for the next ten years he followed the mining camps and logging camps on the west coast, always as a cook.

At age thirty-five Harry was working in Seattle and decided it was time to take a bride. He wrote home requesting the hand of a pretty girl he remembered in his hometown. He met his bride-to-be at the boat in Seattle, but it was not the girl he requested. The girl he had asked for was already married, so the parents sent her sister, Katsuyo Yamasaki. She and Harry were married in 1913.

The Kimuras had two sons in Seattle; Frank M., born in 1914 and George Yoshito, born in 1916. That year, they departed for the new town of Anchorage, Alaska, and the couple took over a small hand laundry from a relative and named it the H & K Hand Laundry. It was located adjacent to the northeast corner of 5th Avenue and C Street. They also started a small restaurant called the Chop Suey House next door on the same corner. Harry operated the Chop Suey House, and Katsuyo ran the laundry. They had two more children, Louise, born in 1918 and William, “Bill”, born in 1920.

Business was slow during World War I, and Harry and family moved back to Seattle seeking a better living. The depression years in Seattle were worse than in Anchorage, and they had to send their four children back to Japan to live with relatives. It was five years before all of the family was reunited in Anchorage. They went back into business with the H & K Hand Laundry and the Chop Suey House in their original location. The family had increased, with the youngest son, Sam Isamu, born in 1928. As the family grew, each member had his job to do in the laundry and in the restaurant.

World War II and Pearl Harbor changed the lives of the Kimura family. Interred in a camp in Idaho during the war period, they lost everything they had. When they returned to Anchorage, Harry raised enough money to pay the back taxes on his businesses and get a new start.

The laundry expanded into a full-fledged operation called the Snow White Laundry and Cleaners. It was the largest such business in Anchorage and was highly successful. George and Frank operated the laundry until Frank’s death in 195l. Son Bill and “Grandma” Katsuyo Kimura opened the Golden Pheasant Café on D Street between 4th and 5th Avenues. It was famous for Grandma Kimura’s tempura prawns. Son Sam opened a photography studio but decided to go to photography school in New York and did not return for twenty years. George opened the Nikko Garden restaurant on Spenard Road near Lake Spenard. It was considered the finest Oriental restaurant in town until it burned down in 1979. The Golden Pheasant closed, and Bill went to work at Snow White Laundry and Cleaners, as did daughter Louise.

The laundry eventually was sold, and the family went their individual ways. Bill was a painter and sculptor who also taught at the community college and Alaska Methodist University. With an education as a professional photographer and art teacher, Sam returned to Anchorage with his wife, Joan, a commercial and fine artist. They shared a private studio and taught at the University of Alaska Anchorage. The gallery at UAA’s Arts Building is named after Sam Kimura. The art works of Bill, Sam and Joan Kimura are in numerous private and public collections in Alaska and elsewhere, and all three have received recognition in numerous ways for their contributions to the arts in Anchorage.

Harry Kimura died in 1957. Katsuyo became an unpaid goodwill ambassador to Asian visitors. Four years prior to her death she was awarded the Zuiho Sho, the sixth order of Sacred Treasure, by the Emperor of Japan, for her outstanding service fostering good relations between the two nations. She died in 1975 while visiting Hawaii.

Eldest son Frank and his wife, Yuki had three children, Jeanne Kimura Mercer, Linda, and David. Son George and his wife, Kazue, had two sons and a daughter. One son, Ronald, born in 1942, died in 1948. Daughter Kathy married Roger Tuttle. Daughter Louise Kimura Sawada married George Wood. She had two sons, Steve Sawada and Michael Sawada. Son William Kimura and his wife, Minnie had four children, Kerry, John, Christofer and Patricia Ann Tyson. Their son Christofer died in 1984. Son Sam Kimura and his wife, Joan had two children, Carey and Steven.

Yusuke “Harry” Kimura and wife Katsuyo Yamasaki Kimura are buried in Anchorage Memorial Park Cemetery, along with sons Frank, who died in 1954; William, who died in 1991; and Sam, who died in 1996. Son George, who died in 1995, is buried there along with his wife, Kazue, who died in 2006 and their son, Ronald, who died in 1948.