Musician retires after 70 years

Seventy years is a lifetime, and one Spokane resident has dedicated that much time to making services special at her church.

Sumi Okamoto, 87, recently retired from her position of pianist and organist at Highland Park United Methodist Church. She plans to spend her days playing golf, doing aerobics, going to church and maybe playing piano now and then for special services.

“It doesn’t seem like 70 years,” she said.

In that time, Okamoto has seen the congregation move to different locations, lived through the Great Depression, gotten married, raised her children and seen the country go to war several times.

In fact, she was married on Dec. 7, 1941, the day Japan attacked Pearl Harbor.

“I didn’t know anything about it,” she said. Her husband and parents had heard about the attack on the radio, but Okamoto didn’t realize what had happened until her wedding reception.

She said that agents from the FBI detained four members of the party – all first-generation Japanese Americans, or Issei.

The newlyweds had planned on a honeymoon in California, but the agents told them it wasn’t safe for them. They stayed at the Davenport Hotel instead.

Okamoto was born in Seattle in 1920 and moved to the Spokane area with her family when she was 3.

She began playing the piano when she was 7. “My dad liked music and he started me off,” she said.

When the Great Depression came along, she had to quit taking lessons, but she soon started to learn to play the organ at Japanese Methodist Mission, which was once located on Third Avenue between Howard and Stevens streets. The minister’s wife taught her to play.

When she first started playing for the congregation, there were two services – one in English and one in Japanese. Okamoto played for the English service.

The congregation was evicted in 1938 and moved to the Grant Street Methodist Church and 20 years later moved to Highland Park United Methodist Church, 611 S. Garfield St.

Through all of that, Okamoto only took three years off for the birth of her three children. She was widowed at a young age but never remarried, deciding that she needed to spend her time raising the children, now 64, 62 and 61.

Okamoto said she participates in the annual teriyaki dinner the church prepares each spring. She helps cut the senbei, a traditional Japanese cracker made from rice flour.

“It is good,” she said of senbei. “You can’t stop with one.”

A second-generation Japanese American, or Nisei, she said she learned a lot from the Issei, but they were stricter in their cooking techniques.

“We take shortcuts,” she said.

She said her favorite songs to play are “the old songs.” Hymns like “Amazing Grace” and “How Great Thou Art,” are at the top of her list.

She said that the services and her friends at the church were among her favorite memories with the congregation.

“That was our community,” she said.

Although she’s spent a lifetime playing to a crowd, the Rev. John Coleman Campbell said Okamoto is very modest and shy.

He added that she will be hard to replace.

“It’s not just anybody who can play organ,” he said.

For now, the church will play recorded music during services.

After the regular services on Oct. 28, the church members gathered for a potluck and a program to honor their longtime musician.

She accompanied a friend who sang “Memories,” and some of the other members of the church played music in her honor.