Toshiko Tekawa

1922 - 2014

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4499 Piedmont Avenue

Oakland, California

Toshiko Tekawa Obituary

Toshiko Tekawa
September 29, 1922 - October 17, 2014
Oakland
Toshiko (Toshi) Tekawa passed away on the afternoon of Friday, October 17, 2014 after an extended illness. She had recently celebrated her 92nd birthday. She had been a resident at Piedmont Gardens in Oakland, California since 2001, moving there from Berkeley, her home for all of her adult life.
Toshi was born in Oakland to Seizo and Kura Tekawa. Her father had a small store in West Oakland. By the time she was school age the family had moved to Berkeley, and she attended Berkeley schools, graduating from Berkeley High shortly before the United States entered World War II. She began her college career at UC Berkeley, but was forced to drop out during her sophomore year when West Coast Japanese Americans were sent to a relocation camps away from the Pacific Ocean. The Tekawas were sent to Topaz, Utah. Eventually Toshi was invited by Huron College in Huron, South Dakota to come there and continue her college education. She was unable to visit her parents, but did find a summer job in a settlement house in Chicago, Illinois. She graduated from Huron and returned in 1945 to Berkeley.
After getting settled once again in the Bay Area, Toshi began work on a Master's degree program at San Francisco State, majoring in Special Education, with an emphasis on teaching the visually impaired. In the meantime, she worked in a child-care facility in Hayward. In 1951 she began teaching second grade at the California School for the Blind, which was then just south of the Cal campus in Berkeley. She was an excellent teacher and was much loved by her students. She was promoted to Principal in 1961, a position she held until her retirement.
Toshi was a very active member of the Berkeley Methodist United Church for almost 75 years. She was superintendent of the Sunday school from 1945 to 1980. She served as both chairperson and secretary of the church governing board and was both pianist and choir member over the years. She was a member of the California Council of the Blind and the Council for Exceptional Children, a branch of a national organization of Special Education teachers. After she moved to Piedmont Gardens she started a program for residents in need of low-vision information and aids. She was the floor representative, delivering daily schedules in the early morning hours to each resident on her floor. An avid handworker, she made towels, placemats, picture frames, and bookmarks by the dozens for both her church and Piedmont Gardens' holiday fairs.
Family and friends of Toshi include cousins Kaz Tekawa of San Jose and Sachi and George Kuwatami of San Francisco. Others are close family friends, Michiko Uchida and Yuri Uchida, as well as Yuri's daughter and son-in law Karen and Stan Yamamoto, long-time friends Elizabeth Groelle and Kayoko Soramoto, as well as, host of friends, teachers and ex-students from all over the world.
In keeping with her wishes, there will be no services.

Published by Inside Bay Area News on Oct. 24, 2014.
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