Fumie Swenson passed away on Saturday, April 18, 2020 in Kearns, Salt Lake County, Utah. She was born Paula Fumie Suzuki in Nagoya, Japan on January 10, 1929 to Paul Sentaro Suzuki and Hisa Shitagaki. Her education at Sugiyama Jogakko high school was interrupted by the 1945 B-29 mass bombing raids on Nagoya, which her family survived. They then took refuge with her mother’s family on their silkworm farm in the mountain village of Takayama. When they returned to Nagoya during the US Armed Forces Occupation of Japan, she was employed as a clerk at Komaki Air Base, where she attended an American Bible study class, and met her future husband, Air Force Sergeant Robert Andrew Swenson, a musician in the Fifth Air Force Band.
Sentaro’s grandfather, a samurai named Bunzaburo Kawai, was converted to the Russian Orthodox Church and raised his family as Christians. During the Russian Revolution, the Japanese Army joined the U.S. Army in supporting the Russian Republic against the Bolsheviks. Sentaro was drafted into the Army and sent to Siberia, where he attended church and was invited to the home of a Russian family for Christmas dinner. Three decades later, in 1947, he asked his daughter Fumie to invite one of the American Christians she knew to Christmas dinner. Seven months later, Robert “Bobby” Swenson and Fumie were married on September 4, 1948 in a Russian Orthodox ceremony, and married again by the U.S. Consul in February 1950. They were later sealed for eternity in the Salt Lake Temple of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in June, 1952, and made a point of celebrating their three wedding anniversaries.
Robert received an early discharge from the Air Force so he could serve as a missionary in Japan for the Church of Jesus Christ. Their first son, Raymond Takashi, was born in Nagoya on December 29, 1949. Fumie was gravely ill with toxemia, but recovered quickly through the faith and collective prayers of Robert and the other Church missionaries in Japan. Fumie was baptized by Robert in the Kisogawa River in Nagano Prefecture in June 1950, and she served as a counselor in the first Church Relief Society organized in Japan. Robert and his missionary companion, Elder Nichols, were the first Church of Jesus Christ missionaries in the city of Fukuoka, Kyushu. Fifty years later, the second of three Church temples in Japan was built there.
In April, 1952, Robert completed his mission and the family sailed for America, and were welcomed into the Salt Lake home of Robert's parents Ruth and Emil and his sister Joan. They bought a home in Kearns where they raised their five children. For several years, they attended the Japanese Dai-Ichi (First) Branch of the Church and served as missionaries to Japanese-American families in Utah. They were members of the Mount Olympus Chapter of the Japanese American Citizens League. Fumie loved tending her home’s Japanese garden, and she performed on the koto, a traditional Japanese stringed instrument, for many church and community events. Robert worked at the Postal Service, and became a leader of the Salt Lake Letter Carriers Band, which performed for many community events. Fumie accompanied Bob on many of the trips the band made to Hawaii and other cities around the nation. When they retired, they began many years of service in the Jordan River Temple.
Fumie made a number of trips back to Japan to visit her family, including a trip in 1981 with Bob and their daughter Pamela to stay with their son Raymond’s family in Tokyo, where he was serving at HQ Fifth Air Force. Ray had served as a missionary in Japan in 1969-1971. Fumie's last trip was in Spring 2011, and she was in Nagoya on March 11 when the largest earthquake and tsunami in recent history hit northeast Japan.
For over 30 years, Fumie worked at the Mikado Restaurant in downtown Salt Lake and had many friends in the Japanese American community. Fumie was an excellent cook of Japanese cuisine, and taught her daughter, daughters-in-law and granddaughters how to prepare sushi and other foods. She would prepare wonderful Japanese feasts for the traditional New Year’s holiday. In Japan, turning 88 is a milestone birthday, and for her birthday in January 2017, Fumie’s family put on a huge celebration at the Kearns 14th Ward meetinghouse, with Japanese dancing and live music, Japanese food, and hundreds of friends and family, while she wore one of her beautiful kimono.
Fumie’s beloved husband Bob passed away in May 2009. Their five children include Raymond Takashi (Connie), David Sentaro (Pamela), Michael Shigeru (Kathy), Pamela Naomi Swenson Clark, and Cory Satoshi (who passed away in 2016). They have over 50 grandchildren and great grandchildren (several of whom have passed on before her). In Japan, she is survived by her sister Kimie Miyagawa and her family, and by the families of their late brothers Sadao, Masaru and Yutaka, and sister Sachiko.
Special thanks to our sister Pam Clark, who cared for Mom since her stroke several years ago, and to visiting nurse Leandra and CNAs Jennifer and Kali who helped with Mom's medical care.
Interment will be at Valley View Memorial Park in West Valley City, Utah, on Friday, April 24, 2020, at her beloved Robert's side. The Swenson family hopes to have a public memorial service at a future date.
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