Ruth Ayame Takata

May 26, 1923 – May 12, 2016

Resident of Milpitas

Ruth Ayame Takata was born on May 26, 1923, in Reedley, California, the second child of Ryuzo and Yoshie (Iwane) Santo (immigrants from Shimane, Japan). We are sad to announce that she passed away from liver cancer on May 12, 2016, just two weeks short of her 93rd birthday.

Before Ruth’s first birthday, her family moved to San Jose, where they lived on Gish Road near Orchard School for more than 15 years. Subsequently, they moved to a farm on nearby Murphy Avenue, where later she and husband Yosh farmed for 30 years. She attended Orchard School, Peter Burnett Junior High School, and San Jose High School, from which she graduated in 1941.

Ruth met our father at the movies in 1939 when she was only 16. Two years later, they were going steady and seeing each other every week. But their courtship was interrupted when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941.

The following year, the U.S. government incarcerated all people of Japanese ancestry. Mom’s family was sent to the internment camp in Heart Mountain, Wyoming, where Ruth first worked in the mess hall and later became a teacher. She wrote faithfully to Yosh, who had escaped going to camp by moving to the East Coast to live and work.

After the closure of the Heart Mountain camp in 1945, Ruth joined Yosh in Minneapolis, where he was stationed in the U.S. Army. On August 18, 1945, three days after VJ Day, they were married by a justice of the peace in Minneapolis.

After their wedding, they moved back to San Jose. Ruth was a farmer’s wife for most of her marriage and worked extremely hard. But she also made time for her two children and was an excellent homemaker, seamstress, and cook. After Dad retired from farming in1975, they continued to live on Murphy Avenue for another 10 years. In 1985, they sold their property and moved to Milpitas.

After Yosh died in 2005, Ruth continued to live in the Milpitas house for five more years, then moved to Palo Alto Commons, an assisted-living facility in Palo Alto, to be near her daughter and granddaughter. There she was a popular resident and enjoyed many of the activities, including bingo, exercise class, and handicraft classes.

Ruth is survived by her daughter Lynn (Philip) Ritter, son Keith (Beverly) Takata; her grandchildren Marisa (Arthur) Reyes, Emily (Michael) Jolliff, Matthew Takata, Seth (fiancée Stephanie) Takata; and great-grandchildren Megan, Kyle, and Trevor Reyes, Scarlett and Anders Jolliff. On the Takata side, she was the last of her generation to pass away, but she is survived by12 loving nieces and nephews. On the Santo side, she is survived by her brothers, Chet and Roland, and two sisters-in-law, Sakaye (Roland) and Sumi (Robert), as well as by 8 loving nieces and nephews. She was predeceased by brother Robert Santo and sister Mabel (George) Shimane.

We would like to thank her physician Dr. Thaichan Jobalia, the staff at Palo Alto Commons, Pathways Hospice, and Senior Companions, especially her loving caregiver Betty Nava, for taking such good care of Ruth in the last month of her life.

Funeral services have been held.