yobaba2point0:

Bob
Fletcher, a former California agriculture inspector who, ignoring the
resentment of neighbors, quit his job in the middle of World War II to
manage the fruit farms of Japanese families forced to live in internment
camps, died on May 23 in Sacramento. He was 101.

His
death was confirmed by Doris Taketa, who was 12 when Mr. Fletcher
agreed to run her family’s farm in 1942, the year she and her extended
family were relocated to the Jerome War Relocation Center in Arkansas.

“He saved us,” Ms. Taketa said.

After
Japan bombed Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941, the United States government
forced 120,000 Japanese-Americans on the West Coast out of their homes
and into internment camps for the duration of the war.

Near
Sacramento, many of the Japanese who were relocated were farmers who
had worked land around the town of Florin since at least the 1890s. Mr.
Fletcher, who was single and in his early 30s at the time, knew many of
them through his work inspecting fruit for the government. The farmers
regarded him as honest, and he respected their operations.

After
President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed an executive order in February
1942 that made the relocation possible by declaring certain parts of the
West to be military zones, Al Tsukamoto, whose parents arrived in the
United States in 1905, approached Mr. Fletcher with a business proposal:
would he be willing to manage the farms of two family friends of Mr.
Tsukamoto’s, one of whom was elderly, and to pay the taxes and mortgages
while they were away? In return, he could keep all the profits.

Mr.
Fletcher and Mr. Tsukamoto had not been close, and Mr. Fletcher had no
experience growing the farmers’ specialty, flame tokay grapes, but he
accepted the offer and soon quit his job.

For
the next three years he worked a total of 90 acres on three farms — he
had also decided to run Mr. Tsukamoto’s farm. He worked 18-hour days and
lived in the bunkhouse Mr. Tsukamoto had reserved for migrant workers.
He paid the bills of all three families — the Tsukamotos, the Okamotos
and the Nittas. He kept only half of the profits.

Many
Japanese-American families lost property while they were in the camps
because they could not pay their bills. Most in the Florin area moved
elsewhere after the war. When the Tsukamotos returned in 1945, they
found that Mr. Fletcher had left them money in the bank and that his new
wife, Teresa, had cleaned the Tsukamotos’ house in preparation for
their return. She had chosen to join her husband in the bunkhouse
instead of accepting the Tsukamotos’ offer to live in the family’s
house.

“Teresa’s
response was, ‘It’s the Tsukamotos’ house,’ ” recalled Marielle
Tsukamoto, who was 5 when she and her family were sent to the Jerome
center.

Ms. Tsukamoto is now the president of the Florin chapter of the Japanese American Citizens League. Her mother, Mary Tsukamoto, was a teacher, activist and historian who, with Elizabeth Pinkerton, wrote “We the People: A Story of Internment in America.”

Mr.
Fletcher’s willingness to work the farms was not well received in
Florin, where before the war some people had resented the Japanese
immigrants for their success. Japanese children in the area were
required to attend segregated schools. Mr. Fletcher was unruffled by
personal attacks; he felt the Japanese farmers were being mistreated.

“I
did know a few of them pretty well and never did agree with the
evacuation,” he told The Sacramento Bee in 2010. “They were the same as
anybody else. It was obvious they had nothing to do with Pearl Harbor.”

After
the war, resentment against the Japanese in Florin continued. If Mr.
Tsukamoto tried to buy a part at the hardware store only to be told that
the part was not in stock, he would ask Mr. Fletcher to buy it for him.

Robert
Emmett Fletcher Jr. was born in San Francisco on July 26, 1911, when
the city was still rebuilding after the great earthquake five years
earlier. He attended the University of California, Davis, and later
managed a peach orchard before taking the job as a state shipping point
inspector.

Survivors
include his wife, the former Teresa Cassieri, to whom he was married
for 67 years; their son, Robert Emmett III; three granddaughters; and
five great-grandchildren.

The
Fletchers bought their own land in Florin after the war and raised hay
and cattle. Mr. Fletcher was a volunteer firefighter in Florin for many
decades before becoming the paid fire chief. He was also active in
historical groups.

He
was never much for celebrating his role in the war, and he noted that
other Florin residents had helped their Japanese neighbors.

“I
don’t know about courage,” he said in 2010 as Florin was preparing to
honor him in a ceremony. “It took a devil of a lot of work.”