By Ruth Sasaki: 

Helen Fukuchi Ogawa was born in 1920 in Martinez, CA, where her father was the caretaker of a pear orchard. After Pearl Harbor, her father’s boss paid him in cash so that he would not have to go to the bank in Martinez, which was in an area restricted to Issei, who had never been allowed to become U.S. citizens.

In Topaz Helen became a preschool teacher. She is shown in this group photo of Topaz preschool teachers in 1944, sitting in the front row, fourth from the left (in saddle shoes). She is seated next to my mother (in a gray tweed dress and black ankle socks), who was the supervisor of preschools. The two stayed in touch after the War.

Helen visited San Francisco in 1947. It was a rare reunion between Topaz colleagues living in different cities and busy with the business of restarting their lives. In the photo taken at Ocean Beach, Helen is third from the left (behind her son Gregory, who is held by Harry Fukuhara, my dad's cousin). My mother, Tomi Takahashi Sasaki, faces the camera; and my dad, Shigeru Sasaki, carries my sister Joan on the far right.

In 2021 Helen was interviewed by Dana Shew for the “Topaz Toddlers” project. She passed away in January 2024 at the age of 103. Read about the Topaz preschool teachers in “Structuring Chaos.”