First Program of the New Year 2015

Happy New Year!!

Here at the Whatcom County Historical Society, we all wish you the very best day and year to come. Please join us for our first presentation of 2015.

Incarceration of Japanese and Japanese Americans during World War II”

 

Presented by Fumio Otsu and Carole Teshima

Thursday, January 8, 2015, 7:30 p.m.

Whatcom Museum Rotunda Room • 121 Prospect St. • Free

A Difficult Chapter in Our Nation’s History

More than 120,000 Japanese and Japanese American families were incarcerated in the United States during WWII. This presentation will give an overview of the incarceration on the West Coast and follow the experience of two families’ pre-WWII, during WWII and post WWII.

Presenter Fumio Otsu was born in the Tule Lake Concentration Camp where Japanese families from Bellingham were also imprisoned. The overview will include a timeline for the incarceration beginning with the evacuation order by President Roosevelt in 1942 to the formal apology by President Ronald Reagan in 1988. People of Japanese ancestry were incarcerated in 10 concentration camps and 29 prison locations. The post war impacts of their release will be discussed from the perspective of each of Otsu’s families. Teshima will present research on the established Bellingham families who were forcibly removed from their homes and businesses, gave up everything and never returned.

History Holiday

Annual History Holiday

Open Mike Sharing and Annual Membership Meeting

Thursday, December 13, 2012, 7:30 p.m.

Whatcom Museum Rotunda Room • 121 Prospect St. • Free • All Welcome

Join us for a festive and informative evening of open mike sharing and holiday goodies! All are welcome (members and non-members alike) to sign up for a 5-minute slot during which you may share anything that relates to local or regional history – a personal story, research items, an artifact, or anything else that comes to mind. We will also be passing out forms to collect ideas for the upcoming trivia night at the Whatcom Museum and gather ideas for other Historical Society projects.

The line up so far

Already lined up for a spot at the mike is Janet Oakley, who will be sharing about “Two gals and a Guy at Gettysburg: Making history while painting picket fences.” In September, along with Edradine and Harald Hovde participated in the Friends of Gettysburg work-vacation. Oakley went to honor her great-grandfather who was a Union surgeon at the battle. Hovde went to bring the story of George E Pickett on Bellingham Bay to the national park there. Hard work and high times ensued.

Vaughn Sherman is also lined up. Sherman is the author of “Sea Travels: Memoirs of a Twentieth Century Master Mariner – The story of J. Holger Christensen as told to his nephew Vaughn Sherman.” Sea Travels tracks two generations of the Christensen family from Puget Sound’s pioneer days, to the Alaskan Gold Rush and onto the world’s open oceans. Their saga includes hard times and history ― taking President Truman salmon fishing on Puget Sound and La Blanca’s dynamite-fueled explosion on a Tacoma shore, one of the most dramatic Puget Sound maritime episodes to this day ― as well as the high jinx and heroism of rootless and restless men of the sea. 

Members who have a project they’d like to share,  sign up before the program. There’s still room.

We will also get a sneak preview of the Society’s newest books and members at $25 and above can pick up their copy of Journal Twelve, hot off the press. A very brief election of board members will precede the program. See you there!