Bainbridge Island would not be the same place without the Woodward family. Their impact has spanned over two centuries and countless lifetimes, beyond the island and around the world.
It may have started with former Review publishers Walt and Milly Woodward’s brave stance against the decision to uproot Japanese Americans during World War II, but their daughter embodied their ideals and brought their work to light.
Mary Woodward died July 17 in Yakima. She is remembered as a kind and intelligent woman who believed fiercely in equity. Her book about her parent’s stance against internment, “In Defense of Our Neighbors,” cataloged photographs, documents, clips and letters.
Katy Curtis, vice president of the BI Japanese American Community, met Woodward around 2008, while both worked at the Bainbridge History Museum. The former exective director of the museum, Joan Piper, encouraged Woodward to write about her family.
“I struggle to be succinct about Mary — her brilliant, vivacious and generous heart will always be inspiring, and her spirit can inspire and propel us to keep the [BI] community spirit and storytelling alive in ours and future generations,” Curtis said in a recent interview. “Mary embodied her mom Milly’s spirit of education and community care, and her father Walt’s spirit of speaking up for justice.”
Woodward’s research uncovered stories that would have otherwise been lost to time. She learned from her parent’s archive that historically, Japanese families lived in a village called Yama near Port Blakely and worked at a mill. Her “persistent requests” for investigation into the Yama site spurred a response from BHM curator Rick Chandler to open an archeological dig at Yama.
BI Councilmember Clarence Moriwaki had been friends with Woodward for decades. They worked closely on many BIJAC projects, including the Japanese American Exclusion Memorial.
“When we were first trying to get national historic status, and we had our bill in Congress, it was the [BI] Japanese Memorial. It was Mary who said that we had to have the word ‘exclusion,’ which sounded like changing horses in the middle of the stream. We thought we’d have to start all over,” Moriwaki recalled. “But Mary said, ‘Well, you have to do it. That’s the whole story.’ And she was exactly right.”
Curtis added, “She wanted to point out that the folks we honor there hadn’t died, they had been forcibly, unjustly excluded from their homes, the community and the work they had on Bainbridge.”
Woodward and Moriwaki visited the Manzanar incarceration site, and when they reached where those from BI lived she had to pause out of overwhelming emotion. “She was in tears by some of the statements and images from the site. I just held her, and she said, ‘Thank you for being here for us,’” Moriwaki said. “I said, ‘Are you kidding? Your family is the story here, and all these other people.’”
Lilly Kodama, a survivor at Manzanar, also became friends with Woodward while working at the museum. They bonded over a mutual political understanding, and also a love of vintage clothing, kitchenware, art, gardening and plants. Their “big outings” were usually going on a studio or gallery tour, checking out Goodwill and having lunch, Kodama said.
“She’s someone who would accept anyone—regardless of race, gender, orientation or anything. It was an acceptance, not in a condescending way,” Kodama said. “Someone who is the direct opposite of someone who was prejudiced.”
At the end of her life, Woodward experienced a mental decline that affected her ability to live independently so the community stepped in. Friends arranged for her home to be purchased, then helped relocate her to Yakima, near her family. Her family’s archives were still stored in her home, and it took six weeks to unpack it all.
And it wasn’t just papers. Woodward had saved the typewriters that were lent to the incarcerated Japanese American reporters by the Woodwards so that they could continue to write from the camps.
“They were truly part of the community — really the heart of it. Had they not been here, it may have been totally different for the Japanese American community,” Moriwaki said. “Mary’s continuation, channeling their story and just being who she is, she’s had her own legacy. There’s always the name, but she was not in their shadow. She more than stood out on her own.”
