Rose T. Kanda

Rose Toshiko (Sameshima) Kanda was born on August 5, 1922, and died peacefully on May 20, 2019, after a brief stay at the Pathways Hospice Care Center in Loveland, Colorado. The youngest of eight children born to Taizo Sameshima and Kiye Kato Sameshima, Rose grew up in Salinas, California. As a child she worked with her family on farms in northern California and as a teen she worked as a live-in domestic. She married Samuel Kanda (deceased) in 1941. Although they were American citizens, on May 6, 1942, by order of the U.S. government, Sam and Rose were sent to the Tanforan Race Track for temporary detention and, on September 19, were transferred to the concentration camp in Topaz, Utah. After their release on March 15, 1944, they moved to Colorado where they were long-time residents of Keenesburg, where she served as post master, and Fort Collins.

Rose was an avid reader with a life-long thirst for knowledge. She loved to play board and video games, surf the internet, discuss current affairs, paint and fish with her husband and brother, Sam. Resilient and adventurous, she traveled extensively to visit her grandkids, survived breast cancer at 89 and celebrated her 94th birthday by catching a 17-inch trout on a float trip down the Eagle River. Most of all, she loved her family – immediate and extended – who loved her dearly in return.

She is survived by: son, Richard and his wife, Dianne, of Fort Collins; daughter, Kathryn of Denver; granddaughter Alexis Kanda-Olmstead, her husband, Greg, and their children, Abraham and Miriam, of Woodstock, Vermont; grandson, James Bryan-Kanda, his wife, Dorothy, and their daughter, Margaret; and many nephews, nieces and their children.

The family will conduct a private celebration of her life and requests that, in lieu of flowers, donations be made in her memory to the Japanese American National Museum (http://www.janm.org/).