Yuri Fujii Sugiyama's Obituary
Yuri Sugiyama of Oakland, CA passed away on November 9, 2019 at her home in St. Paul’s Towers. Yuri is survived by her two daughters, Linda Sugiyama of Cambridge, MA and Gayle Sugiyama of Oakland, CA.
Yuri was born on April 24, 1924 in Portland, OR to Kanji Fujii and Mitoyo Kurata Fujii. As a young child, she and her two older sisters Kiyo and Toshi traveled to Japan by boat and lived for three years in Shiga Prefecture near Lake Biwa in the care of her grandmother and two aunts. The three sisters returned to Portland before Yuri started school.
Yuri graduated from Lincoln High School in Portland in January 1941 and enrolled as a freshman at the University of Washington in the fall. Following the outbreak of World War II, Yuri, her parents, and two sisters were interned in the Minidoka War Relocation Center in southern Idaho. Yuri was released from camp in 1943, temporarily joined her eldest sister Kiyo who was attending pharmacy school in St. Louis, and then enrolled at the University of Chicago. She graduated with a Bachelor’s degree in 1947 and joined the staff at Michael Reese Hospital. She worked at the hospital until 1953 becoming the head dietician, before leaving her job in order to have children.
Yuri married Hiroshi Sugiyama on March 31, 1951 in Chicago, IL where both of their daughters were born. The family moved to Park Forest, IL in 1960 during Hiroshi’s professorship at the University of Chicago and subsequently relocated to Madison, WI in 1966 as part of the Food Research Institute at the University of Wisconsin. Yuri moved to Oakland CA, following the death of her husband in 2005.
Yuri Sugiyama’s ashes will be interred with those of her husband Hiroshi in the Chapel of the Chimes, Oakland, CA.
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