Fusae Waters (née Yoshimura) passed away peacefully in her home in Eureka on May 27, 2023.

Fusae was born in Kita-Kyushu City, Japan on August 18, 1928, as the second of three children to Kikujiro Yoshimura and Tome Yamashita, and was a descendant of samurai lineage on her mother’s side. Fusae was a very bright child. She was admitted to high school in the early 1940s, which was extremely rare for females in Japan at that time; girls’ education beyond middle school was not compulsory and only those who were top academic performers could attend high school. Her education was interrupted by World War II when she arrived at school one day only to find it had become a crater after being bombed. Thereafter, she survived the war conscripted to work in rice fields. Years later she recounted how lucky she was to have worked in the rice fields and not the factories (as some kids were forced to) because factories were allied targets. The war ended and Fusae eventually graduated high school with honors.

In her early twenties, in the interest of improving her English, she applied for a job at the post exchange on the U.S. Air Force base in Fukuoka, Japan. While working in the post exchange she met an American airman, Floyd Waters, who was stationed there during the Korean war and he would eventually become her husband. After marrying and giving birth to their first child, Danny, in Japan, they moved to Arizona in 1953. Their stay in Arizona was brief, as Fusae hated the heat and complained to Floyd, which led them to eventually settle in Eureka. Fusae and Floyd had three more children: Eugene, Patricia, and Donald.

She eventually began a long career at General Hospital in Eureka as a housekeeper in the Labor and Delivery Department until she retired after 25 years of loyal service. Fusae was beloved and respected by her co-workers at the hospital, and she equally loved working there. She would often fondly tell her family after she retired about all the interesting people she worked with at the hospital. Fusae also settled into Humboldt County’s small, but vibrant Japanese community comprised mostly of women who had also married American GIs. For years she and her other Japanese friends cooked together, sang karaoke together, played bingo together, and laughed together. Fusae had a nickname within the Japanese community of “the saint” – no matter how much gossip she heard, she never repeated a word – a value she tried hard to instill in her grandchildren.

Fusae was a passionate gardener with an amazing green thumb. She grew all sorts of incredible fruits, vegetables, and flowers in her sizeable backyard – her blueberries were particularly legendary. She loved animals, and on more than one occasion she nursed baby birds who had fallen from their nests back to their health, until they were mature enough to fly off into the wild. Fusae had a heart of gold, a pure soul, and positively impacted the lives of all who knew her. Fusae was an amazing human, with an exceedingly rare amount of compassion for all. She will be missed beyond the words of human expression, but her memory and the life lessons she taught us will forever live in our hearts.

Fusae is preceded in death by her husband Floyd, her sons Danny and Eugene, her parents Kikujiro and Tome Yoshimura, and her older brother Iseo Yoshimura. She is survived by her daughter Patricia Waters, son Donald Waters, grandchildren Jiro Waters, Erica Botkin and Alex Botkin, and her younger brother Mitsuaki Yoshimura.

There will be no memorial service, and instead of flowers her family has asked that donations be made to Hospice of Humboldt or to charity in Fusae’s name.

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