“Whenever Dad told this story, he would cry,
thinking about the loyalty of his friend, Paul.”
Paul Strate
(1923-2002)
By Lois Shimasaki-Oda
My father, Fred Shimasaki, would have been 100 years old now. He passed away years ago. Dad went to high school in Strathmore, California. He was a senior with one month to graduate when he was sent to the Fresno Assembly Center. The principal allowed him to graduate despite not finishing the final month and taking the exams. There are many stories he and his siblings have of people who helped them but one stands out in particular:
While his family was in one of the Arkansas camps – they were first in Jerome, then Rohwer – one of Dad’s friends visited them. He was their neighbor from the next farm in Strathmore. This friend, Paul Strate, was in army training somewhere within driving distance. During his leave, he drove to the camp to visit them.
The guards at the gate were shocked when he pulled up. The military tried to get Paul to bunk and eat with them while there but Paul said no, he wants to eat and stay with the Shimasakis. The meal that night was so poor that my grandma, who worked in the kitchen, snuck out a baloney sandwich for him.
Whenever Dad told this story, he would cry, thinking about the loyalty of his friend, Paul.
All photographs are from Pleiades 1941, the Strathmore Union High School yearbook, Strathmore, California. Courtesy of Golden Nuggets Library/SF Genealogy, which determined that the yearbook has no copyright. Used here for educational, non-commercial purposes only.
© 2026, Lois Shimasaki-Oda.
Lois Shimasaki-Oda was raised in Hayward, California with her parents, Fred Shimasaki and Ellen (Shimada) Shimasaki and two older brothers. She graduated from UC Berkeley and worked as a project manager. She is a member of the Eden Township Japanese Community Center Board as well as member and past president of the Eden Township JACL. She met Paul Strate once many years after the war when he came by to visit with her father. “My father would really love the fact that his story is being told.”