Hoddy Nakamura was born on the 23rd of May, 1926 in Sublette, Wyoming to his Japanese born parents Kiyota and Tome Nakamura, who hailed from Fukuoka ken, Japan.
By the time Hoddy arrived, he already had two big brothers; Tom and Mike, and one older sister, Mary.
Big families weren't uncommon during those days, and Tome would go on to bear another three children: Betty, Josie, and Jackie.
"Life up there could be hard, but we had our share of fun, really our boyhood wasn't too bad. With seven kids there wasn't that much to go around," said Uncle Mike by phone, from Salt Lake City. "We would do a lot of fishing, and rabbit hunting and even sleigh riding in the winter."
Fishing was a sport all the Nakamura boys seemed to enjoy with great enthusiasm, even in their later years.
Uncle Mike , 86, recollects the family moved from Sublette to Frontier, Wyoming, when he was in the 6th grade.
He said Hoddy attended Kemmerer High School, and almost didn't graduate because of some teenage pranks.
"Your dad he played a lot of sports you know, but he got in a lot of trouble too, and got expelled from high school, did he ever tell you that?" questioned Uncle Mike, with a chuckle. "He acted silly in school or something like that, he was always clowning around. Well boy did I have to talk my hind leg off to get him back into highschool, where he did finally graduate."
In Frontier Uncle Mike said the Hams Fork River used to run right in front of their house, and he recalled how they would swim and fish in that beautiful river whenever they had a chance.
When no one was looking, Uncle Mike recalled how he, Tom and Hoddy; the three of them used to sneak off for two or three days at a time up into the mountains to go fishing.
As for funny moments in Hoddy's childhood, Uncle Mike pauses and bursts out with a laugh before re-telling the "chase" story:
"Your dad did something that got grandpa so mad, that grandpa took that iron fire poker and started chasing your dad around, well your dad ran so fast, and he had to because grandpa was actually pretty fast himself. Well your dad ran right out of the house, jumped over that fence to get away. Yeah, he sure ran fast when grandpa got that iron rod."
Uncle Mike found it amazing that Hoddy's favorite food remained pork chops throughout his life. Amazing because he said growing up they often had to eat tainted pork.
"In those days, we had no ice-box, and these farmers would come down from Bear Lake and sell the coal miners pork loins," recalled Uncle Mike. "Well grandma would take that pork and put it in the cellar, where it's a little cooler, but there was no refrigeration. She'd go down there and cut off pieces of pork and chop it up and make okazu. After a few days it started to smell down in the cellar.
Really I don't know how we survived. We just thought it was really good because it was meat. It's a wonder any of us survived."
Shortly after high school graduation, Hoddy got his Army Draft notice, and Uncle Mike recalls he was sent overseas during the war.
"Well when he came back from the war, he went back to our old house in Frontier, but we had already moved to Salt Lake City, and here he was in Frontier wondering where we all were," said Uncle Mike laughing at the memory. "He eventually found us."
As was typical of Hoddy, Uncle Mike said he was posted on a base in Alabama, and whenever he got a long leave he would hitchhike all the way back to Salt Lake City.
"Yeah, he hitchhiked, and he did that all the time," said Uncle Mike.
In Alabama, Uncle Mike says Hoddy saw segregation, up close.
"In those days, they had these signs that 'colored people' had to sit in the back of the bus. So your dad thought he should sit back there too, and he did, until one day some police came aboard the bus, and told him not to sit there."
Perhaps it was this type of experience that made Hoddy sensitive to those who had few rights?
Hoddy liked to take his grandchildren to the Japanese-American Museum in Los Angeles, because it was important to him that they know the story of what also happend to the Japanese-Americans here, he didn't want them to forget that history.
After his army duty was completed, Hoddy came back to SLC, and attended the University of Utah on his G.I. bill, and eventually graduated with a degree in electrical engineering. He'd later earn his Masters degree in engineering at UCLA.
While at the Univesity of Utah, Hoddy met Manny Takasugi , a student at Weber College, at a dance in Ogden, Utah. He was introduced to the woman who would be his wife for 55 years, by his younger sister Josie.
Years later with a house full of noisy kids he would joke, "darn that Josie, she's responsible for all this."
Manny recalls Hoddy had to borrow his older brother's cars to go on dates, because he was as "poor as a church mouse."
Manny says they were so poor, Hoddy convinced her to forego a big wedding and elope to Nevada, and that's what they did on March 14, 1952.
During their 55 years of marriage Hoddy and Manny reared four children, Steven (D), Mark, Apryll, and Penny.
As youngsters, the three older children would find adventure in the far off land of Singapore, as Hoddy's job as an electrical engineer had him posted at a tracking station in the Far East region.
Hoddy would spend his career working on the developement of the F-15 radar, and F-14 simulator and INTELSAT VI program. Hoddy would also end his career teaching at UCLA and LACC, and tutoring his grandkids, when they let him, in mathmatics!
In retirement, Hoddy loved to make people laugh, and he loved to tinker about in his garage making toys and knick-knacks for everyone. He enjoyed reading his newspapers, and books. He
loved to read poetry as well.
Hoddy and Manny visited Kemmerer, Wyoming last summer with his brother Mike, his wife Tee, and his niece Vicky and her husband Craig. Together they ventured into the backwoods of Sublette, which according to Mike is about ten miles up in the hills, from Kemmerer," in the boondocks", there they spent long hours together recalling their childhood:
"We were little boys then in Sublette, we used to climb that mountainside," said Uncle Mike wistfully. "Grandpa was a coal miner...your dad was a smart guy, he acted goofy and silly some times, but he was smart and he got an education and I'm so proud of him and Jack. If you knew how poor we were back then--I'm so grateful they got an education. Your dad, had such a love for the Wyoming country and the outdoors, I don't really know why, but he loved it out there."
