Thomas Hikida was born to Frank Yohei and Emma Hatsu Hikida in Auburn, Washington on Oct. 16, 1922. He passed away on Sep. 22, 2022 in Auburn.

Tom was always a hard worker and he worked long hours even as a child. At age 6 he tended his parent’s general store. In those days, he often recalled, customers were honest and would leave the exact change for anything they purchased.

As Tom was growing up, his time was spent in school, Japanese language classes, music lessons and working in his family’s businesses. He was always proud that as a senior in high school, he was invited to represent Auburn High and play his Clarinet at the Northwest Educators Conference.

He entered the University of Washington in 1941. After Pearl Harbor, he as well as many other Japanese-Americans were sent to an internment camp—in his case, Tule Lake—and he had to quit college. (In 2008, 67 years later, the University awarded honorary degrees to Tom and other classmates sent to the camp.)

The next few years were chaotic for Tom. From the camp he found a work sponsor in Idaho where he set up pins in a bowling alley. He joined the Army and was almost sent to Italy with the 442nd Battalion but was reassigned to military intelligence at the last minute. Tom left the military due to a medical disability. He was the second person of Japanese descent to return to Seattle. No one would rent him a room at the time. Tom was finally introduced to a Quaker, Royal E. Post, who gave him room and board and found him a job. Tom was grateful to Mr. Post for the rest of his life. During that time, Tom went back to his parent’s home in Auburn and was chased out at the point of a gun. However, another Quaker, Professor Floyd Schmoe, with the help of his daughter, drove Tom to Auburn to meet with Tom’s friends in Auburn. Eventually they helped his parents return to Auburn and their house.

After his parents came back to Auburn, Tom worked at their florist shop. However, he chaffed under his parents’ rules and in 1947, he rejoined the Army. He was an intelligence field officer in Japan when he met his wife, Beatrice Mitsunaga, and married her in 1949. She was a native of Hawaii and was working as a billeting manager for the Army. Tom then became a civilian and managed commissaries and hotels for the Army. Again he just missed a very dangerous assignment. The day after he turned in his resignation, the Army stopped accepting resignations in order to send all soldiers to Korea. Tom eventually became head of the military’s hotel division in the Pacific.

In 1960 Tom returned to Auburn and started two businesses, Oriental Gift Shop and Tobe’s Drive In Restaurant. At the time of his retirement in 1982, he worked for the Auburn School District.

While working and then well into retirement, he was involved in countless volunteer positions. He volunteered at the local food bank, the Buddhist Church, the White River Historical Society and the Japanese Citizen League. He was a long-time Mason and Shriner and he was also involved in the Masonic youth organization, DeMolay International.

When the old Cascade Junior High School was torn down, there were several pole lamps lighting the walkway up to the front door. These lamps had been donated to Auburn High School by the Japanese community before World War II. Tom organized a committee to raise money to save these lamps and rededicate them on the campus of the new Auburn High School.

He was preceded in death by his loving wife of 60 years, Beatrice Hikida, and his sister Pearl Okura. He is survived by his daughter Diane and her partner Don Martin, his son Vernon, his son Vincent and wife Yukie, and their two sons Christopher and Jason.

Dad/Grandpa we love you and hope that we can live life in as exemplary manner as you have done.

In lieu of flowers or “koden”, we request that you please make a donation to the White River Valley Museum or your favorite charity.

Diane wishes to add the following accomplishments of Tom. He was on the Mt. View Cemetery board for 7 years, on the Auburn Food Bank board, the Auburn Good Ol’ Days Committee, Past president of JACL, Board of Directors of White River Valley Museum, and on the museum’s Planning Commission, Finance Committee, and Docent manager, Auburn School District Board of Directors, Masonic Lodge Member and winner of Lodge Hiram Award, the Auburn Chamber of Commerce Citizen of the Month, and finally an avid photographer and gardener.