Elizabeth Ann Inouye Takasaki has served in various organizations and committees, including Intermountain Healthcare Women's Advisory Board, Community Connect Health Board, American Mother's Association, and chair of American Medical Association Alliance. She also served on the LDS Young Women General Board. Currently she serves on Board of Directors for Big Ocean Women.
“Legacies,” a podcast by Utah Women’s Walk
Season 1, Episode 2: Ann Takasaki
For the complete Video Interview, click here.
Utah Women’s Walk: The Podcast
Interviewee: Ann Takasaki
By: Tamarra Kemsley
MW: Utahns prize hard work and service, and today’s guest is proof of that. Speaking to her, you get the feeling you could call her anytime of day or night with any favor, and she’d show up – no questions asked. Raised on farms in Richfield and Gunnison, she says she just never saw an alternative way of doing things.
AT: I think that some of the things that impacted me most in my life were certainly my father’s and my mother’s work ethic. They worked so hard; they were so willing to give their all, and if something extra was added, they just gave more effort. That really was the greatest example and the thing that impacted me the most in my life.
MW: I’m Michele Welch, from Utah Women’s Walk and this is “Legacies” a podcast dedicated to preserving the inspiring stories and wisdom of Utah women. Ann Takasaki has served on the Intermountain Healthcare Women’s Advisory Board, Community Health Connect Board, American Mother’s Association, and as the chair of the American Medical Association Alliance, and on the Latter-day Saint Young Women General Board. She is currently on the board of directors for the organization Big Ocean Women. Henry Unga,, a former American Studies student from Utah Valley University, interviewed Ann in 2014.
HU: I want to start with—I guess from the very beginning or before the beginning.
AT: In 194[1], Japan bombed Pearl Harbor. And prior to that, my parents, my grandparents were living on the West Coast and really trying hard to make a success of themselves. But when Pearl Harbor was bombed, they were forced to evacuate their homes; they were given two weeks to sell whatever they could sell or to ask a trusted friend to take care of it for them. My dad went to the Santa Anita racetracks in California, and they literally lived in the horse stalls. My mother went to the Oregon County fairgrounds. Her situation was the same; they stayed in the livestock stalls. She talks about being pushed down the livestock ramps into the fairgrounds as [being] really humiliating. And as they entered, they were given a large long bag and told to go fill it with straw; that was their mattress for the several weeks they stayed there. Apparently, there are these areas where [they showered]—they’re not really showers. They don’t come from overhead; water shoots out so that they can wash the animals. So that was actually their shower facility, and they put up curtains all around—no privacy. So that was a bitter pill to swallow. And then they put them on these trains, and my mother from Washington, my father from California, were sent to Heart Mountain, Wyoming, which is at the northern part of Wyoming.
The wind blows horizontally, and the dust and the snow just passes before your face horizontally. It is so windy there, and it is really cold. And as they were approaching that area, they had to climb a lot of mountains, and the train would slow down. And in these areas when the train slowed down, there would be Japanese-American people who were not interned because they live far enough inland. They would be standing with blankets and heavy coats, and they would push them through the windows and say, Take these. You’ll need them; you don’t know what it’s like where you’re going.
When they got there—there were 14,025 Japanese-Americans who were interned. And these camps were large camps, rows and rows and rows of barracks. The outside of the barrack was covered with black tar paper, no bricks certainly or shingles or siding; it was just this black tar paper. Needless to say, it was as cold inside their homes. And that’s where they lived for three years, which is unbelievable, isn’t it?
But I have to talk about that—my parents—how they met at camp. They were both Sunday school teachers in the Buddhist Church, both faithful, devout Buddhists. And my father and mother courted by walking around the outside of the camp night after night after night, talking about their goals, their dreams, getting to know one another; that was their courtship. They married in the camp, in one of those units, standing room only; many guests, friends, standing in this unit. The party after the ceremony was at the mess hall, and the friends all donated their ration cards, and they somehow, miraculously, were able to gather a big banquet for their wedding dinner. From the housing unit to the mess hall, was—I don’t know how long of a walk it was—but my mother’s gardenia corsage was all brown by the time they got to the mess hall because it was so cold; it had been frozen.
So after the war was over and the treaty was signed, these Japanese-American people again were given a hard blow. They had one week to leave, and some of them were lucky enough to have had friends who maybe took care of their farm, and they were able to go back to their farm or their shop, whatever. But the majority of them had nothing like that. But my father, his wife, and children, his father, his sister, brother, many people were able to go to Sigurd, Utah, to a produce farm on the Snow Ranch. And Sigurd is tiny; there are only like 360 people.
One camp called Topaz in Delta, Utah, was also dispersed. And so my father and these men went to Delta, and. I don't how they did it, but they brought barracks from Delta to Sigurd, Utah, to the Snow Ranch, and that’s where they lived. I always wondered why my house looked so funny, you know, the black tar paper. It wasn't until recently, my adult years, that I realized that it looked funny because it was a barrack; it was one of those barracks. And that's where I lived when I was born; that’s my first home.
This farm is located in a beautiful place nestled next to the red hills of Cedar Ridge, but unfortunately a strain of the nuclear fallout from the testing in Nevada made its way to our farm and to the exact location where my sister was standing one day. And a little while later she was at the dentist; the dentist recognized the signs of leukemia in her mouth, and told my mother to take her to the doctor.
She always wanted a sister. When I was born, my mom woke her up and said, “You have a baby sister.” And she said, “A sister?” And then she fell back to sleep. [I wasn’t allowed in the hospital because I was so young], but they would sneak me into the window of the hospital and let her hold me; not for very long because she was very weak. And she passed away six months after I was born. She's always been a great influence in my life even though she wasn't living.
My father is very religious and wanted his children to have religion. So he encouraged us to go to th eonly church that was there, that was The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the Mormon Church. And my mother, because she wanted us to behave, she took us every Sunday.
The fact that I am a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is such a miracle to me. What a blessing.
My parents didn’t join the Church until they were like sixty-five, you know. After we had all—well my brothers had all gone on missions, but when my parents were baptized, this is how they announced it: they sent a Christmas card from Gunnison, Utah, to Provo, Utah, to their children. How weird is that? (laughter) So we get this Christmas card that said, by the way, if you could be there on December 27, we’re going to be baptized.
And to this day, we have Buddhist relatives, Mormon relatives, and then we have another group of Christian relatives who are very faithful Christians. We love each other, and we never let our religion stand in the way of our family love. When my children were baptized, my Buddhist relatives were there. When my Buddhist relatives were buried or had certain memorial services, we were there.
In fact, in 2006, about thirty of us went from America to Japan and met with our Japanese relatives; it was an amazing experience. My brother had purchased kimonos, summer kimonos, which were called yukata, for all of us to wear. And we put our yukata on, and we sat with our Japanese relatives and had dinner. It was quite a surreal experience because I remember the teenage, kind of young single adult age girls dressing me, and the young, young girls, like nine- or ten-year-old girls, sitting on the floor looking up at us, and the grandmas, the obaasan-tachi, standing in the back kitchen area looking on—these generations of Japanese people whose blood was the same meeting together sharing our love and our devotion to one another. It was a beautiful experience.
They’re so similar to us; their values are the same. In my uncle’s office, the diplomas of all of his children and grandchildren are displayed. He’s proud that they were able to gain an education. Religion is the same. They have a butsudan, the family shrine, that clearly, fresh food was placed there that morning and every night. And when they took us to the temple, this large, new temple, they took us past many, many, many rows, several little segments, walked right in, went right to the place, opened up the little gate, pulled out the urn, and said, Here they are; here’s our relatives—clearly religious people, clearly devout in their religious experience. I’m really proud of that; that impacts me. I want to be like them. My father used to say to me—if I didn’t want to go to church on Sunday on the farm in Richfield, Utah, he’d say “You’re Mormon aren’t you?” “Yes” “Then go to church.” He expected us to be faithful, devout members of whatever church we belonged to.
HU: In your childhood, in those formative years, is there a person—is there an influential woman, someone you admired that set the course for who you look up to and who you wanted to emulate?
AT: Well certainly my mother, certainly my mother and my grandmother. Their schooling was of course, limited. They weren’t able to get a college degree, but they did whatever they could. My mother took a course in drafting patterns so that’s why she could call herself a professional seamstress. And my grandmother and my mother were always, always reading, you know. And that way they were role models for me.
Another role model for me within the Church was a woman named Miriam Dastrup. She was the—she was someone I feared actually. The other [women who were role models for me were Siby Warnock and Maralene Dastrup]. [They] taught my mother how to do things like make soap [by taking] fat from the animals, mix[ing] it, boil[ing] it, render[ing] the grease, mix[ing] it with lye [to] make soap; she made [their] own soap. And she did things like can—in those days you actually got a bushel of peaches when you bought peaches. It was like a whole bushel made out of wood with the ribbing around the outside and what you would imagine. [Maralene Dastrup] would can twenty-four bushels of peaches every year. And she would go out herself and kill the sheep and take all of the—whatever you do to a sheep. (laughter) She did all these things; she was a butcher. She provided for her family; her husband was out farming, but she did everything else. Nothing was too hard for these women, and I guess in many ways that was something I grew to believe as well, that nothing was too hard.
AT I always knew that I was different from everybody else because I looked so different. But in some ways it was an advantage to me. When I tried out for something, I was usually chosen. And I would give credit to my ethnicity; they chose me because I stood out.
AT: I was never bullied, but occasionally I would hear words that I knew were not nice, like Jap or slant eyes or something like that.
In high school I grew up in Gunnison, Utah. There were fifty, sixty at the most, people in my class. We all knew each other very well, and we all pretty much liked each other. No matter what, we knew that so-and-so’s parents were divorced, or that so-and-so’s father had passed away. We knew that so-and-so’s mother and father were alcoholics. We pretty much knew everything about each other. And so it was a real sense of belonging all through high school.
I would say the time when I felt that my race might be at a disadvantage to me was when I was in college thinking about getting married.
I remember I really liked one man, and his parents were dead set against his marrying a Japanese woman. It really, really hurt my feelings; that was a real disappointment to me. But I think that’s probably the main experience that I had with being a different nationality that affected me. Other than that, everything else just kind of blew over; it wasn’t that important to me. That one experience that really did hurt me.
I had kind of a bitter pill to swallow in college. Something happened to me that was hard. I was a junior in college, and I had this funny bump on my stomach, and I called my roommates, and I said, “Guys come here; what is this? There’s something—what is this?” And they said, Yeah there’s something there. So I went home to Gunnison to the general doctor there, Dr. [Lamar] Stewart, and he said, “Well I think it’s a hernia. Come home at Christmas time, and we’ll just take care of it.” I said, “Okay.” So I went, you know, finished the semester out, went down to Gunnison. He went to do the surgery, and he said, “I can’t do it yet because it doesn’t feel like a hernia.” So he took some x-rays and then rescheduled the surgery. I went in, and I had the surgery. When I came out of the surgery, he told me that he had to remove both my ovaries. So that was a real blow for me, for my whole family; we were just devastated about that.
I went back to Provo. I had a boyfriend at the time, and he was just amazing, just helped me through it. I was in Cougarettes at the time. And just carried on, carried on with life. But the thing that was hard is every time I’d get close to someone, I’d have to say, “By the way, you know, I have to let you know that I can’t have children.” So that night coming home from Gunnison was the night I told Roman, “I’m sorry; it seems like maybe you’re thinking seriously about me, but you’ve got to know this; I can’t have children.” And he said, “I don’t care.” Of course, he would say that, not thinking about it, but it wasn’t a big problem for him. It was a big problem for a couple of the young men that I dated, and in fact, the reason that we broke up. But for Roman it wasn’t. And shortly after that, he proposed.
And so, as soon as we were married, we applied for adoption.
And I have this amazing friend named Claudia Hyatt Rowley; she was my Cougarette advisor. And she knew my situation and as soon as we got married, she went to the LDS Services for me.
And when we got the phone call, the timing was just perfect. We’d been married for three years, and the sister on the phone said, “We have your baby for you.” I said, “What?” She called me at work; I’m like, “Really? Can I call you back?” So I called my husband; we called them back and said, “Sure.” There was someone coming from Hawaii on an airplane, and they would bring our son to us.
And so we picked up this little precious baby at the LDS Social Services office, and it was so, so beautiful and such a blessing to know that Heavenly Father would just take care of things for us. We, of course, had such love and such concern for the birth mother, considering what she was feeling and how hard a decision this was to allow us to adopt her child. It was very emotional experience, but it was such a happy time. He was so cute.
Six months later I was in Gunnison, and Brother Miles Jensen, who also worked for the social services department of the Church, said to me at church, he said, “You know there’s a baby girl in the system.” I said, “What?” He said, “Yeah, a Japanese baby girl is in the system.” And I thought, Wow. But I knew that we weren’t eligible because you can’t apply for another child for two years. I thought when he said that—the moment he said that, I knew that that child was our child. And so I went home, and I just thought about it all day long, and finally I called the Salt Lake office, and I said, “You know I heard that there’s a Japanese baby girl that’s being placed for adoption.” They said, Yes but you’re not eligible. I said, “But what if I feel like the baby is ours?” And they said, Well we’re very prayerful in our decisions, so we’ll take that into consideration. We’ll get back to you.”
So as it turns out, they felt the same way.
I was working at a computer software company called Evans and Sutherland, a very technical company, and I was their media support person. Previous to that, I had been a producer of commercials. I also had quite a bit of media skill, so I got this job at Evans and Sutherland right next to student housing at University of Utah, so it was perfect. But I quit that job, and I said to my bosses, “If you need me, for anything, let me know.”
HU: That is quite a jump between young married motherhood and your service with the General Young Women’s Board. What are some of the events that led to that? And if you could just touch on that experience, what that experience was like?
AT: I think it was just to be quite honest, connections with friends, good people that I’ve worked with throughout the years.
HU: What are some highlights that you’ve taken from your service on the board?
AT: I don’t know if you know this, but it’s really hard to get things accomplished in the Church. It’s really hard. A lot of what we did was writing; and so you’d have to find time in the morning or late at night to do the reading and the studying required to do the writing. So it was often, you know, up at four, to bed at eleven or twelve. It was many, many days like that. But it was fun; it was really fun, and so we didn’t mind it. The curriculum committee especially, their task was really heavy, and they put many, many hours into refining their drafts to be submitted in hopes of approval. And that process went over and over and over again. It’s not like you can just write curriculum and say, “Here it is.” You write it. You give it somebody; they look at it. They give it to somebody; they look at it. You just hope and hope and pray that your work has been good enough or that someone down the line will like it, and often it’s not accepted. And then you just have to do it all over again. So the fact that that curriculum was actually adopted by the Church, is pretty remarkable.
HU: That’s great. The maxim that you shared, you know, hard work, education, reaps benefits. What are some of the mottos or maxims or words that have propelled you through life?
One of them actually is from the Doctrine and Covenants , that there is a law irrevocably decreed before the foundations of the world upon which all blessings are predicated, and when you receive any blessings from God it’s upon obedience to that law, upon which it is predicated. I think that is a maxim for me. It’s a law—that You can’t expect something for nothing; that you have to put forth the required work to reap the benefits. So reap and sow, I guess that would be the same maxim, but certainly that has been the maxim for me.
Another thing that I’ve always been taught is to be generous. No matter what you have, you always have enough to give. My father always taught us that; no matter what I have, I always have enough to give. Some people don’t see themselves as able to give anything; it’s not true. We’re all able to give, and we need to be generous in what we give. It might be our time, and it might be our emotional support, or it might be money.
HU: The last question that I have is just in reference to that beautiful moment that you shared about visiting your family in Japan and having the children watching as the young women helped you dress. As the women, generations removed from you, watching the entire scene take forth—it’s a beautiful moment, and I think it speaks to a larger theme. What is the legacy that you’re going to hope to pass on as the baton is passed to another generation?
AT: That’s interesting. You know, we think about that a lot in our family because we—I’m talking about our extended family, my father, my father’s brothers and sisters who are my aunts and uncles, their children, my cousins, our children and our grandchildren; we are a strong family, and we meet together often. If members of our family feel that they belong, they’re able to accomplish great things. As members of God’s family, feel like they belong to God’s family, that that’s who they really are, they’re able to accomplish great things. So I guess that is part of the legacy that I’m hoping will continue on, the legacy that they belong to a wonderful family on this earth, the Inouye family, and the legacy that they belong to a wonderful family of God. And with that membership and that belonging to that family, that they can accomplish anything—and that they need to—where much is given, much is required, and my father said that to us all the time: where much is given, much is required.
MW: In 2020, we sat down once more with Ann to find out what she had been up to in the six years since we had spoken. Alyssa James, from Utah Women’s Walk Board, conducted this interview. A warning to listeners, the following contains mention of sexual violence.
AJ: Well, since you have last been interviewed, it’s been a few years, and I just want you to tell us about some more things that you have been doing and maybe some more valuable experiences that you would like to share.
AT: My life has been busy with Big Ocean Women. We train women to lead by recognizing their innate feminine gifts. And they lead first with their family, and then they expand to lead in the community. And at times this leadership expands to our global sisters and brothers all over the world. It’s exciting. It’s wonderful.
The girl that started this organization, her name is Carolina Allen.
And she just kind of had an epiphany about her role in the world and how she could make a difference. And so she had some really profound experiences that helped her to see this innate power within women. She had this burning drive to help other women recognize that in themselves, and so she started an organization called Big Ocean Women.
And when I went to the first meeting just to support her, as the daughter of my good close friend, my first thought was, you’ve got to change the name of this organization. Nobody is going to want to join an organization called Big Ocean Women. And my husband has teased me, you know, “What are you big women doing tonight?” [laughs] But it turns out that the name is exactly what it needs to be. She saw herself as just a tiny little wave, but when she lifted her eyes, she could see that she was really part of a big ocean, and that the majority of the women in the world feel like she does, in that she honors her feminine identity. She honors her womanhood. She honors and rejoices in the role of creating life, and nurturing and influencing young lives to be the best they can be. So it’s a great name.
Our mantra, and I’m sure you would agree, is that every woman is a creator, and that every woman should have a voice. Our mission is that we envision a world where all women are valued and create positive and generative solutions. Solutions that benefit the coming generations.
We have cottages all over the world. And recently we have been able to partner a domestic here in the United States with an international cottage. So, for example, Spanish Fork Cottage is a sister cottage to the Ghana Cottage. The Houston Cottage is a sister cottage to the Nigeria Cottage. So those relationships are very meaningful. We help one another. We learn from one another. When we see the impact that our cottage members are having in their own families and in their communities, and then the broader outreach, it’s really rewarding.
AJ: What kinds of projects have you done?
AT: Well recently, of course, with the pandemic, we have been able to ask ourselves and our friends to be generous, and we have been able to help people, our cottage members, and also other people, in really significant ways. For example, we posted that we were going to try to help the Navajo Nation, and within days, we had thousands of dollars come in. And with that money we rented a twenty-six foot trailer and filled it to the brim. People were so generous, and Carolina and her husband actually took a trip to the reservation and unloaded it there.
We received word from our South Sudan Cottage leader that they needed money for locks because with the pandemic these young boys were breaking into homes and holding the mother at gun point and taking the young girls out on the street and gang raping them. So they needed money for locks, so that they could protect their families. So of course, we did that, and we asked them to itemize their project. We wanted to know, in some specifics. But in that plan though, there were construction materials. And so when I questioned her about the construction materials, she said, “Well, that was for the woman whose eight year old daughter was taken out into the street.” And then it hit me, that woman didn’t have a door. She didn’t have a wall. So that kind of aid has been really sweet to give.
Our Nigerian Cottage, the people, because of the pandemic, were in lock down. They couldn’t go out to work and sell their goods. They live day by day. If they can’t go out to work today, they don’t have any food for tomorrow. And so we were able to send money that our generous donors have given us.
AJ: What do you feel is critical and most important right now for us to focus on and develop in our lives during these turbulent times?
AT: Well, one thing that I have come to more fully understand through Big Ocean Women, is the model of powerful impact. That you have influenced me. You have impacted my life—you even used that word impact—by just the connection that we have. Every woman has that power within her. Every woman is innately gifted to influence. And there is nothing more important than that power to influence. It begins with the closest people around you and then it extends wider and wider. But it comes from within.: It’s not a power that we receive from somebody else, as far as an organization or a government, or even monetary wealth. It’s something internal, and we all have it. And if we recognize and follow the right source, when we are using that power, we can do great things. And for me, of course, that source is God. And I see the gift that he has given me. The power, and the strength, and the experiences, the people I connect with. All of that is a vehicle to do good, to do his work.
And I think that in times of uncertainty, if we tap into that power. If we realize how abundant our life is, just innately, not because of where we live or what we are doing, but just that innate feeling at the core of abundance and being blessed, helps us to be generous and to be influential to others. I say, shine on, use that power, use that strength, and recognize your source.
MW: We thank Ann Takasaki for both of her interviews. She is a woman who leaves a legacy of hard work, dedication, and service to home, church and family. If you would like to learn more about Big Ocean Women you can visit bigoceanwomen.org.
If you’ve enjoyed today’s episode, be sure to share it with a friend, as well as subscribe and rate us on itunes.
You can access the full interviews with Ann Takasaki and many others on our website utahwomenswalk.org. You can also visit the Utah Women’s Walk exhibit where the monumental
statue “Connextion by artist Ben Hammond is on display at Thanksgiving Point Gardens in Lehi, Utah.
A special thanks to our producer and writer, Tamarra Kemsley and our editors, Ron Cool as well as Catherine McIntyre and Richard McLean from the George Sutherland Archives at Utah Valley University Library.
And a special thanks to our supporters Denise and Allen Alexander, Julie Bagley and Shauna Duke.
Thanks again for listening to today’s episode of “Legacies.”than that power to influence. It begins with the closest people around you and then it extends wider and wider. But it comes from within.
And a special thanks to our supporters Denise and Allen Alexander, Julie Bagley and Shauna Duke.
Thanks again for listening to today’s episode of “Legacies.”