Sute Kumagai

Amy Andrews' mother dies in Japan

Amy Andrews of Lusk left Monday to visit her native country of Japan. She will spend about a month there to help settle family matters, following the death of her mother last week.

Andrews' mother, Sute Kumagai, 85, was born Jan. 29, 1905, one of nine children of a pioneer family, at Yubari, Hokkaido. She died Sept. 3, 1990, at Oshimambe, Hokkaido. In 1924, she married Shigemi Masuda and they moved to many different towns on the island of Hokkaido, because of her husband's job as a policeman. When her husband went to China in 1938, she was left to raise her three children alone. At first, she worked as a floral arrangement and sewing teacher. During World War II, she was forced to work as a manual laborer, sometimes digging ditches or sorting potatoes, to support her family.

In 1949, she went to work in a hospital in Yakumo, Hokkaido as a nurse's aide. She gave up her position at the hospital in 1956, when she bought property and began operating an egg farm. She continued to run this business until 1980, when she retired.

In 1975, she married Yoshio Kumagai.

She was preceded in death by both of her husbands, five brothers and three sisters. She is survived by her son, Kazuya Masuda of Oshimambe; two daughters, Reiko Hobeshied, Franklin Park, Ill., and Emiko (Amy) Andrews of Lusk; 10 grandchildren and nine great-grandchildren, in Japan and the United States.

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