Free-range turkeys from Branigan Farm in Woodland / Courtesy of Taylor’s Market

Taylor’s Market knows how to talk turkey to their Land Park, Curtis Park and Sacramento customers. This local butcher and grocer has been selling Thanksgiving turkeys for 50 years, and recently made Sunset magazine’s list of “Top 50 local food stores” in the magazine’s October issue. Owner and head butcher Danny Johnson says Taylor’s Market began putting the spotlight on local turkeys almost 20 years ago.

Johnson explains, “We’ve been selling locally grown, free-range turkeys from Branigan Farms in Woodland for close to 20 years. We are the largest retail outlet for Branigan, and we sell their turkeys year-round. We always have Branigan turkey breast in our meat case, and it’s the turkey we use in our sandwiches as well.” Taylor’s Market also sells Mary’s Heritage Turkeys, free-range Narragansett and Bourbon Red turkeys in limited quantities. Taylor’s meat counter offers smoked Branigan turkeys as well as a stuffed turkey breast with prosciutto, roasted tomatoes and basil.

Taylor’s Market will sell 500-600 turkeys this Thanksgiving, which given the size of the market is amazing. According to Johnson, “We don’t have room for them all, and everyone wants to pick up their turkey a day or two before Thanksgiving. We lease a 30-foot refrigerated trailer from a local company just to store turkeys.” He says every turkey has a number and a name on it, with extra turkeys for walk-up customers who didn’t order in advance. “At Branigan Farms, they feed their turkeys longer than the industry standard, so there is a little layer of fat between the skin and flesh that makes them self-basting. You just let the turkey cook in its own natural juices.”

In this photo from 1977, Taylor's Market founder, Ed Schell, and meat counter staff get turkeys ready for pick up. / Courtesy of Taylor’s Market

Branigan Turkey Farm was established in 1942, and their family owned operation raises 18,000 to 20,000 turkey each year. Most turkeys are processed at 16 weeks, and while they are considered mature at that age, Branigan believes the only way to raise a quality bird is to raise their turkeys to 25 to 27 weeks. Besides being raised for quality flavor and value (more meat per bone), Branigan Turkeys are also processed for the same. Every bird has all fine pin feathers removed and the giblets and neck are properly packaged and stored in the turkey cavity. Branigan Turkeys are chilled with ice before final packaging.

Johnson says the brining trend is still in full swing this year. “Brining replaced the deep-fried turkey trend of several years ago. Brining helps make the turkey more moist and adds a certain amount of flavor. We sell brining kits with everything you need, including a food-grade bucket.” He recommends roasting your turkey breast down. “That allows the fat in the turkey back to baste the breast. Unless you’re planning to stage Norman Rockwell’s painting, Freedom from Want, you are probably not going to carve the turkey at the table. Even then, you can turn the turkey over for the last 45 minutes of roasting, or just brown the breast with a torch. When you bring it out of the oven, you’ll want to tent the turkey for 30 minutes to an hour to retain the juices.”

As for carving, Johnson says, “The only part of the turkey you’re going to carve is the breast. Most chefs and home cooks will pick it apart with their fingers.”

Johnson adds, “Everyone has turkey for Thanksgiving because of the pilgrims. Thanksgiving celebrates our American heritage. And that means turkey with all the trimmings.” Taylor’s Market offers Thanksgiving sides a la carte (order early, quantities are limited), including: mashed potatoes, turkey gravy, candied yams, traditional stuffing, cornbread stuffing, creamed spinach, cranberry relish and green beans. Customers can also order pies (Apple, Pumpkin, Chocolate Bourbon Pecan, Sweet Potato Meringue and Pear-Cranberry Crumble) as well as assorted cookie platters, s’mores cupcake platters, holiday brunch breads and savory quiches from Taylor’s Pastry Kitchen.

Jim Ford stands with some of his art pieces during one of his recent shows. Photo by Lance Armstrong

Editor’s Note: This is the second article in a two-part series about Land Park native and Ford’s Real Hamburgers founder Jim Ford.

Jim Ford, founder of the recently closed Ford’s Real Hamburgers at 1948 Sutterville Road, sat down last week to discuss one of the greatest loves of his life – art.
This love of art, Ford explained, began when he was about 5 years old.
“My love of art began when I was attending Crocker Elementary School on Vallejo Way, next to California Junior High School (now California Middle School), which I also attended,” Ford said. “I just gravitated naturally toward art, because I liked it, and I excelled in it, because of the deep interest (in art) I developed.”
Ford, who has spent the majority of his life residing in the Land Park area, said that he was not the first artist in his family.
“My father (John Dewey Ford), who was born in Sacramento on March 12, 1898, was a furniture maker and refinisher for Breuner’s department store and later for Scofield’s (department store),” said Ford, who resides in South Land Park with his wife, Karen DeVoe, who he married in 1993.
While attending California Junior High, Ford, whose childhood home was at 1824 3rd Ave., began taking art and mechanical drafting classes.
He excelled in these subjects through his time as a student at C. K. McClatchy High School and Sacramento City College.
And while attending McClatchy, he was in charge of the school’s advertising committee during his sophomore, junior and senior years.

During the late 1960s, Jim Ford was the artist for posters and handbills for 10 Northern California rock concerts. Shown above is his first artistic rock image for a concert at the Governor’s Hall in Sacramento. Photo by Lance Armstrong

In recalling his involvement in this committee, Ford, who was also president of McClatchy’s Art Club during his senior year in 1962, said, “The committee was my favorite non-class. I got to paint signs and banners and it was just a lot of fun.”
One of Ford’s earliest major artistic achievements occurred while he was attending city college in 1963.
A collage piece that he had created for the school’s color and design class was selected for the inside front and back covers of the school’s 1964 Pioneer yearbook.
Ford spent several years in the 1960s moving back and forth between Sacramento and Aspen, Colo.
During this time in Aspen, Ford, who described himself as having been a “ski bum,” held a variety jobs from a waiter, a busboy and a donut cook to a janitor, a maid and a bellman.
Ford became the city draftsman for the city of Aspen in 1964.
A year later, Ford joined the Air Force Reserve, and after spending six weeks in basic training in San Antonio, he transferred to McClellan Air Force Base to serve his six-month term of active duty.
After this service, Ford returned to his draftsman job in Aspen.
In 1966, he was accepted to the Art Center College of Design in Los Angeles.
After spending only a few weeks at this prestigious art college, which was established in 1930 and is now located in Pasadena, Ford returned to Sacramento and enrolled at city college.
Ford said that he dropped out of college in 1967 to pursue an artistic venture.
“I coerced my friends, the Schultze brothers, into promoting a concert with three bands at the Governor’s Hall,” Ford said. “I named it Simultaneous Avalanche of Psychedelic Lights. Featured at the show were the local bands, Parish Hall Blues, Working Class and Free Love, and our light show. We drove a 1956 Dodge Town Wagon with a permanent sun deck onto the wooden floor at Governor’s Hall and then projected wild, colorful, psychedelic lighting on three walls from the sun deck platform.”
To promote this May 12, 1967 show, Ford created artistic advertising posters and handbills.
Ford would eventually gain more exposure through his art during this experimental counterculture era of the 1960s, as he left Simultaneous Avalanche to Tom and Rick Schultze and concentrated on creating more concert advertising posters and handbills.
His next concert advertising posters and handbills were for the Grateful Dead/The Creators shows, which were held at Kings Beach, Calif. on Aug. 25-26, 1967.
Altogether, Ford was the artist for 10 images for concert posters and handbills.
These concerts also included the Pop Music Festival featuring Jefferson Airplane at Hughes Stadium on Oct. 15, 1967 and performances by The Jimi Hendrix Experience and The Creators at the Sacramento State men’s gym on Feb. 8, 1968.
Although Ford had created a niche for himself as a concert poster and handbill artist, he eventually left Sacramento to return to Aspen after he was asked to continue his city draftsman position.
Along with his city draftsman position, Ford worked as a freelance graphic artist and photographer.
In 1970, Ford was offered a full-time graphic artist and illustrator position with the Studio Three advertising agency, which was owned by Norm Clasen and later became known as the Norm Clasen and Associates.
After accepting this position, Ford worked for Clasen for nine years.
The most notable of the many projects that Ford created for Studio Three was his series of Aspen ski town art, which was used for the advertising campaign for the Aspen Skiing Corporation for two seasons and became the logo for the city of Aspen for more than a decade.

Jim Ford was the artist for this well-known Aspen, Colo. ski town scene, which he drew and colored in 1972. Photo by Lance Armstrong

During this same time, Ford also worked as the public announcer for many major sporting and in-town events, one of which was the Nations World Series of Skiing with the notable sportscaster Brent Musberger.
In 1977 through 1981, Ford designed and built homes in the Aspen area, after which time he returned to Sacramento and continued acquiring graphic design work.
Ford moved to Sloughhouse in 1983 and became involved in a major project of drawing scenes of 13 different areas of Sacramento and other parts of Northern California.
These drawings received much press and his limited edition prints of these scenes were purchased by Weinstock’s and Macy’s department stores in Sacramento.
Ford was once again residing in Aspen in 1985 and 1986.
A year later, as presented in the first article of this series, Ford, who was then residing in Sacramento, founded Ford’s Real Hamburgers.
After selling his restaurant in 1991, Ford continued to design logos, draw architectural plans and pursue his dream of manufacturing a removable rack for pickup trucks.
It was also during that time that he owned a 1962 Piper Cherokee 160 airplane and enjoyed flying to various small airports around the Sacramento Valley.
In 2004, Ford was the facilitator and project manager of a $5 million water treatment plant in Marysville.
Most recently, he has devoted much of his time to creating welded metal art featuring fish and birds and exhibiting his works at fine art festivals and fairs.
Ford said that he has enjoyed the many artistic-related activities of his life and that he looks forward to his future endeavors as an artist.
“My life has been full of wonderful achievements and projects and I look forward to new challenges in the art and design world, wherever they may fall,” Ford said.

CUSTOMER SERVICE Is the key to the success of Taylor’s Market / Photo courtesy, Taylor’s Market

In 1962, Roy Taylor and Ed Schell opened Taylor’s Market as a neighborhood grocery store on Freeport Boulevard in Land Park.
Now 50 years later, Taylor’s boasts a website that ships worldwide, the restaurant Taylor’s Kitchen, and butchering classes that have given them national notice.

The secret’s out
“We’re an old-fashioned neighborhood store like there used to be on every corner of every big city,” explained Danny Johnson, co-owner of Taylor’s Market with his wife, Kathaleen. “You can get eye drops here if you want and you can get a T-bone steak and everything in between.”
Johnson said neighborhood grocery stores like this can still be found in cities like New York and San Francisco, but in Sacramento they’re a dying breed.
“It’s something that’s not around anymore, so we’re kind of a throwback,” he said.
So what’s the secret that has kept Taylor’s Market going while others have not? Johnson said the answer is to give patrons great customer service, a great product, and just do things that other people can’t find in other places.
“This has been called sometimes the unofficial community center of Land Park and Curtis Park – people come in here shopping and they meet their neighbors and we’ve had people standing in the produce for a couple of hours talking,” Johnson explained. “You can stand outside the store and be talking to someone and someone goes by and honks and you know who they are. That’s kind of cool in a big city.”
Brian McNeil, ecommerce manager for Taylor’s Market, said it’s also the personal relationships the store has with its neighborhood customers that larger stores are missing out on.
“Many of us both work and live in the same area, and a customer sees me in front of my house and they can come right up and tell me what’s going on,” he explained. “We want to continue to have that total personal relationship with everyone that comes into the store.”

On the web
McNeil said Taylor’s continues its personal relationship with its customers through its website,  www.taylorsmarket.com
“Our website has gone from being something that was done out of our break room to a full-time operation now with six employees – it’s one of the fastest growing departments in our store,” he said.
Johnson said everything Taylor’s Market offers in the store is available for purchase online.
“We ship everywhere – we ship to Brazil, we ship to Iraq, we ship to Australia, we ship to Europe a lot,” Johnson added.
“Our goal is to bring Taylor’s to outside of Sacramento to everyone else across the nation and try to deliver the same customer service level that we have within the store to people nationwide,” McNeil explained.
Butchering 101
For customers closer to home, Taylor’s Market offers a number of classes throughout the year, such as pairing cheeses with beer and wine, and Johnson said they are looking at offering baking and pasta making classes in the future.
However, the most popular classes at Taylor’s are the butchering classes, of which Johnson said they offer eight to 10 each year. The classes typically sell out. Taylor’s Market began offering the classes due to customers always asking questions of meat department staff.
“It was only natural to be able to teach it if there’s a huge interest in it,” he added.
McNeil said Taylor’s butchering classes have become so popular, they’ve caused them to have national notoriety as they were mentioned in an article in TIME Magazine.
“We’re getting quite a bit of recognition – it’s just been a big draw,” he added. “And it helps the consumer to learn what pieces of meat they should select, what they should be looking for, and even how they can break it down at home to save some money for them as well.”
On July 10, Taylor’s is taking their butchering class up a notch by offering the Lava Lake Lamb Dinner & Butchering 101 Class.
“The owners of the (Lava Lake) Ranch will be here and Danny will break down a whole lamb at that time,” McNeil said.
And in October, Johnson said they are planning a field day at Wintun Ranch in Roseville that will include a butchering class and cooking dinner on the ranch.

In the kitchen
What allowed Taylor’s Market to start offering butchering classes was the opening of Taylor’s Kitchen in October 2009. Although Johnson said he never thought the building the Kitchen is housed in would become a restaurant (he does say his wife always did, though), he said it ended up becoming a restaurant out of necessity to generate income due to the economic crash.
“And it’s worked out, it’s excellent,” he said. “I call it an accident; my wife had the vision that it was going to be a restaurant.”
Currently, Taylor’s Kitchen is open for dinner Wednesday through Saturday, and recently they started serving Sunday brunch, which Johnson said has been a huge hit.
McNeil said the Kitchen has become a showcase of all the ingredients customers can purchase at Taylor’s Market and make dishes at home.
“And it’s just become a neighborhood go-to place,” he added. “It’s within walking distance of almost everyone who lives in the area.”
Giving back
With an obviously strong connection to the Land Park community, Taylor’s Market does what it can to give back. McNeil said one of Taylor’s main benefactors is the Sacramento Gay and Lesbian Center.
“Probably a good third of our customer (based) and some of our employees are members of that community and we support them whole-heartedly,” he said.
Additionally, Johnson said Taylor’s Market has been supporting the Crocker Riverside Pancake Breakfast for years, and supports many of the clubs and student activities at McClatchy High School. And for Taylor’s 50th Anniversary Gala five-course dinner event on Aug. 12, all proceeds will benefit the Sacramento Children’s Home.
So why does Taylor’s Market feel it’s important to give back to their community? Johnson simply said it’s because they like to help the community.
“Without the community’s support, the store won’t survive, and that’s why we give back to the community – it’s a two-way street,” he explained.
And what about the next 50 years?
“Taylor’s will always be here as long as it’s taken care of the right way and stays with Roy Taylor’s original vision, which was ‘small neighborhood store with good customer service,’” Johnson said. “It will survive, if not thrive.”

It’s been said that “If you live here, you’ll know.” That rings true in the first edition of Marty Relles’ “Janey Way Memories.”

"Janey Way Memories | Volume 1: The Story of the Janey Way Gang"

In Marty’s poignant collection of tales of his growing up in Sacramento in the 1960s, Relles weaves together stories of his childhood, photos from friends and neighbors of his youth, and a brilliant recollection of what it’s like to be a true baby boomer.

Relles’ column, “Janey Way Memories,” has appeared in local papers for years. Readers kept asking for more. So Marty put together the first of what will hopefully be many volumes of storytelling that only he could articulate with such finesse.

Filled with boyhood pranks, oddball neighbors, and a few tearjerkers, he’s able to show all of us that childhood memories do matter.

After the first page, you’ll see the passion Relles feels for his childhood, what it meant to him (and us), and how it shaped who he is today.

If only everyone were compelled to take the time to write their memories down, store them somewhere, and be able to throw them out to the next generation with such ease, it would be a foundation that each generation could build upon and learn from.

Whether you’re from Sacramento or not, old or young or somewhere in between, this book manages to touch a nerve with everyone. There is a paragraph somewhere that everyone can relate to in his or her own way…and that makes the book a true gem.

“Janey Way Memories: Volume One, The Story of the Janey Way Gang” is available for $15 a copy. To order, visit www.Janeywaymemories.com.

In addition to hitting schools, irrigation systems and traffic signals, copper wire thieves have left approximately 175 neighborhood locations throughout Sacramento in the dark over the course of the last several months.

Some of these neighborhood locations involve several blocks of street lights out within each location reported.

The City is asking the public to help stop copper thieves, as the situation has risen to a level in which repairs to streetlights are backlogged for up to three to four months – even with a four-person crew working seven days a week and a just hired contract crew.

Calls from the public about streetlights out have increased dramatically since the end of daylight savings time. The City continues to receive on average four to five reports weekly of new neighborhood areas that have been hit by copper wire thieves.

Please be vigilant about reporting to Sacramento Police any suspicious activity around streetlights in which a truck without a City seal and workers without uniforms and badges are visible.

To date the Department of Transportation has spent $200,000 replacing copper wire. The Department has encumbered $95,000 for contractor costs, $86,000 in copper wire stock and $90,000 in pull box security lids. The department will ask the city council to approve additional funding in January to purchase more security lids, as there are 40,000 streetlights and two pull boxes per streetlight that will ultimately be needed.

To report a copper theft crime, call 9-1-1 or (916) 732-0100.

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Jackie Boor, co-author of “Inside the President’s Helicopter,” will sign copies of her book at the Avid Reader at Tower, 1600 Broadway in Sacramento on December 12, 2 to 4 p.m. Written with LTC Gene T. Boyer, the books tells of the early days of transporting the President of the United States by helicopter. Among many glowing endorsements, is Julie Nixon Eisenhower who writes, “Inside the President’s Helicopter is a story of high adventure, courage and history-making moments…a very human, up-close look at the Presidency. It is a must read for anyone interested in the White House.”

Photo courtesy, Dean Hupp

Yu Kosuge

She will perform works by Ludwig van Beethoven, Tōru Takemitsu and the complete “Études, Opus 10” by Frédéric Chopin.

The performance will begin at 7:30 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 20, in Capistrano Hall’s Music Recital Hall on the campus at 6000 J Street. Admission is $10 for students and seniors and $15 for general admission. Tickets are available at the University Ticket Office, (916) 278-4323 or www.tickets.com. For more information, call (916) 278-5155 or visit www.csus.edu/music.

Sacramento’s annual “Gold Rush Days,” held over the Labor Day weekend, experienced greater crowds due to the cooler weather – and no competition from the California State Fair, which was held earlier this summer.

The Sacramento Japanese United Methodist Church, a church with roots dating back to the 19th century in the capital city, will be holding its 40th annual Asian Food and Cultural Bazaar on Saturday, Oct. 2.

The Sacramento Japanese United Methodist Church at 6929 Franklin Blvd. in south Sacramento will be the site of an Asian food and cultural bazaar on Saturday, Oct. 2. / Valley Community Newspapers photo by Lance Armstrong

Rich in flavor, tradition

The event, which begins at 11 a.m. and continues until 3 p.m., will feature a variety of Asian food cooked on site such as teriyaki chicken, sesame chicken, udon, Korean short ribs, kahlua pork, chow mein, sushi, and manju (Japanese confections).

Additionally, the event will include children’s games and free entertainment, including performances by the ukulele group, ACC Pocket Pickers, Sacramento Taiko, guitarist Mark McLean, and the hula group, the Ohana Dance Group.

Guests of the bazaar will also have the opportunity to purchase nursery items and handmade crafts created by the church’s Boutique Committee.

The bazaar is undoubtedly one of the church’s richest traditions, since the church, which is located at 6929 Franklin Blvd., was founded in June 1968 and the bazaar was first held in 1970.

But as previously mentioned, the church has roots dating back to the 19th century, thus in many ways, it is much older than the 42 years that it has operated on Franklin Boulevard.

A tale of two churches

The formation of the Sacramento Japanese United Methodist Church occurred as a result of a merger between the Pioneer Methodist Church of Sacramento and the Florin Japanese Methodist Church.

Pioneer Methodist Church 

Sunday school class members gather outside the Japanese Methodist Church of Sacramento at 331 O St. in 1936. / Photo courtesy of SJUMC

The older of these two churches is the Pioneer Methodist Church, which according to the book, “A Centennial Legacy: Historyof the Japanese Christian Missions in North America,” was the third oldest Japanese Methodist church in the United States.

The roots of the Pioneer Methodist Church, which was originally known as the Japanese Methodist Church of Sacramento, date back to about 1891, when ministers from the Japanese Methodist Church in San Francisco traveled by riverboats to Sacramento, where they conducted worship services and roadside preaching for local Japanese residents.

The congregation gathered in a house at 510 L St. with its first appointed minister, the Rev. Sotohichi Kihara, in February 1892.

The following year, under the direction of Superintendent Harris, the church was formally organized.

According to an historic, translated record of the church, which at the time was referred to as the Japanese Methodist Mission, its members began meeting at 903 D St. in December 1893.

In 1895, the church relocated to 310 M St., where it remained until 1908.

The church held its services at 417 P St. for the following decade and in 1918 moved to its longtime site at 331 O St. A new church building was dedicated at the O Street site on March 4, 1951.

In 1954, the former Japanese Methodist Church of Sacramento was renamed Pioneer Methodist Church.

Florin Japanese Methodist Church

Although it was not as old as the Pioneer church, the Florin Japanese Methodist Church had a long history of its own.

The history of this Florin church began in 1913, when Dr. H.B. Johnson worked with Japanese community leaders to establish Christian work and a Japanese language school in the town of Florin.

In 1915, the Florin church’s first appointed minister, the Rev. Raiichi Minabe, was appointed and a two-story building was designated for the church and school.

The following year, a sanctuary was constructed for the Florin church, which began with seven members and seven children. A multi-purpose hall was added in 1927.

Despite the Japanese internment as a result of Executive Order 9066 in 1942, both churches resumed their operations in 1945.

These churches continued their services and other activities for the following two decades.

WWII internment contributed to merger

In the 1960s, efforts to merge this pair of churches began, as the Pioneer church was being forced to relocate due to city redevelopment and the Florin church’s membership numbers had dwindled.

Tom Kushi, who was born in Florin in 1924 and graduated from Elk Grove High School in 1942, three days prior to the internment, said that a contributing factor to the Florin church’s attendance woes was due to the internment.

“Most of the membership didn’t come back to Florin (following the internment),” said Tom, who was raised on his father Shonosuke Kushi’s farm at Stockton Boulevard and Gerber Road.

Tom said that less than a dozen former Florin church members are living today.

Among these former members is Sam Kashiwagi, who was raised on Stockton Boulevard, along the former Highway 99, about a mile south of Florin Road.

Kashiwagi said that the Florin church originally met in a structure at Florin and Pritchard roads – across the street from today’s Buddhist Church of Florin – that was connected to a parsonage. He added that a community hall was built on the site about 10 or 15 years later and by about 1958, a new parsonage was built just south of the hall.

Efforts to locate a home for a new church ended when the Merwin Memorial United Methodist Church at 6929 Franklin Blvd. dispersed and the Merwin church’s four acres of property and its small building was obtained by the Pioneer and Florin churches for $1, plus the payment of the Merwin church’s debts.

The acquisition of the Merwin church and property was aided by a recommendation by Merwin church pioneer members, Eugene and Marion Drown.

Bill Taketa, who managed the Bank of America at 1515 Broadway and served as the church’s treasurer, said that a considerably large cost of the new church was the addition of a $20,000 parking lot.

The Japanese United Methodist Church

The Rev. Motoe Yamada is the current pastor of the Sacramento Japanese United Methodist Church. / Valley Community Newspapers photo by Lance Armstrong

The merger, which occurred in June 1968, allowed the Pioneer and Florin churches to officially meet together as the Japanese United Methodist Church.

Initially, the then-new church met in the sanctuary within the site’s small building, but through the assistance of many of its members who helped to lower costs, a new sanctuary and multi-purpose social hall was completed in 1970 at a cost of $250,000.

Roy Sato was among the members who helped lower the cost of the project, as he provided free heating and air conditioning labor.

Charles Kobayashi, a member of the church’s history committee and a former member of the Pioneer church, said that the preservation of the church’s history is an important endeavor, which includes a current project to translate about 12 volumes of handwritten Pioneer church journals. The journals were written from about 1892 to about 1940.

The church’s pastor, the Rev. Motoe Yamada, who was born and raised in Tokyo, Japan, was the daughter of a Buddhist monk and became a Christian in the 1990s, said that it is important to remember the church’s history and its early members.

“I think it’s wonderful that we have such a rich history,” said Yamada, who attended the University of Toledo in Ohio. “We don’t want to forget that, because of the Isseis and what they went through and their experiences coming over all the way from Japan and being Christians and of course, second generation (Japanese) born here who experienced internment camps. Now we have third, fourth, fifth generation (Japanese) and we are becoming more mixed. I always want to make sure we learn from the history, so we will never forget how faithful those first and second generation (Japanese church members) were and the legacy they have.”

In honor of the Issei Japanese, church members created a memorial garden between the old Merwin building and the 1970 structure. Last year, a fountain was placed within the garden, which is cared for by a church group, known as the “Garden Angels.” The “Angels” are led by Ed Kubo and Bob Sasaki.

Yamada said that in appreciation of members of the former Merwin church, a special ceremony will be held at the recently renovated Merwin sanctuary on Sunday, Nov. 7 at about 11:45 a.m., following the 10:30 a.m. worship service in the larger sanctuary.

Yamada emphasized that in addition to the importance of remembering the roots of the church and its early members, it is also important to stress that despite its name, the Sacramento Japanese United Methodist Church is very much a multicultural church.

“We are becoming more and more multicultural,” Yamada said. “We have a Japanese-speaking ministry, but almost everything is done in English. And regardless of a person’s age, race, gender or ethnic background, everyone is invited.”

And like the church’s Sunday services, the community is also invited to attend the Asian Food and Cultural Bazaar on Saturday, Oct. 2 from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m.

For additional information regarding the Sacramento Japanese United Methodist Church and its upcoming events, call (916) 421-1017.

lance@valcomnews.com