Susumu “Oscar” Kobayashi, 1892-1975.
Figure 1. Kobyashi Family at Riverbank, Geneva, IL, 1930. From left to right: Suye, Sumiko, Noboru, Michicko, and Susumu.
The Fabyan Japanese Garden was maintained by Susumu Kobyashi, known as “Oscar” by Riverbank staff, from 1925 to 1939. His story of immigration and internment was like that of many Japanese who came to America in the early part of the twentieth century.
Susumu was born on March 13, 1892, and grew up in Hirata, Japan, a lush mountainous region 150 miles northwest of Tokyo. He came to America in 1914 to work on his cousin’s farm in Florida.
The farm was part of an agricultural community called Yamato, near present-day Palm Beach. Yamato (大和), meaning “Great Peace,” was the idea of a 29-year-old Japanese man named Jo Sakai in 1903. Sakai, a graduate of New York University, convinced Florida politicians and businessmen that he could transform Florida’s agriculture into a profitable endeavor. His success attracted many young, single Japanese men to immigrate to the United States to work on these farms.
In 1917, Susumu left Florida for Detroit to work at automobile factories through a work-study program. Unfortunately, World War 1 halted the work-study program, so Susumu made his way to Chicago and was soon hired as a gardener by Colonel George Fabyan to work at Riverbank.
Susumu worked for two years at Riverbank for $35 a month, living in a room above the dog kennels at Riverbank with roommate Jim Kirkpatrick. Using money he saved working for Colonel Fabyan, Susumu returned to Yamato in 1920 to start his own gardening business. His brother soon arranged a marriage to Suye Matsumoto, a young woman of 20 from the town of Iya in the southwest part of Japan. The marriage took place in Japan on July 19, 1922, and afterward, they returned to Yamato. The following year, they welcomed their first daughter, Sumiko.
Figure 2. Sumiko Kobyashi with “Big Girl” in front of the Kobyashi’s home on the Fabyans’ Riverbank estate, 1926.
Colonel Fabyan never forgot Susumu. When Sumiko was two, Colonel Fabyan persuaded Susumu to become manager of the highly profitable cut flower business in the estate’s greenhouse and maintain the grounds of the Japanese Garden at Riverbank. The Kobyashis remained at Riverbank until Nelle Fabyan died in 1939.
While living at Riverbank, Susumu and Suye had two more children, a son named Noboru, in 1926, and a daughter, Michiko, in 1929. The family lived in a home on the Riverbank estate north of the Villa, which was attached to an old carriage house that had housed the Italian artist Silvio Silveresti’s studio (see figure 2). By all accounts, the children had a privileged upbringing living at Riverbank. They attended the local Geneva Sixth Street School, played with Nelle’s dogs, and befriended the menagerie of the Colonel’s animals.
Figure 3. Topaz, Utah Japanese Internment Camp, 1942. The Kobyashi family was forced to live here from 1942 to 1944.
After Nelle’s death in 1939, the Kobayashi family moved to San Leandro, CA. In May of 1942, the family was violently uprooted from their home and were removed to a Topaz, Utah internment camp under President Franklin D Roosevelt’s Executive Order 9066. Over 120,000 Japanese Americans were forced to relocate to one of ten different internment camps around the United States after the bombing of Pearl Harbor. After being released in 1944, the Kobyashis relocated to Wallingford, Pennsylvania where Susumu started a gardening business. He retired in 1963, at the age of 71. Susumu Kobayashi passed away in December of 1975 at the age of 83.
Noboru, Sumiko, and Michiko have all visited the Fabyan Villa Museum since their childhoods and share stories, gifts given to their family, and memories of their time at Riverbank and Geneva, Illinois.
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All photos are the property of Preservation Partners of the Fox Valley, St. Charles, IL.