March 8, 1933 – December 10, 2021
Grace Yoshiko (Ishimine) Morinishi, 88-year-old Calexico-born Nisei resident of Fountain Valley, passed away in Santa Ana on December 10, 2021. Services will be private. Grace was born on March 8, 1933, the ninth of 10 children of Tokuhei and Kamato “Yone” (Inafuku) Ishimine. Her family farmed in the Calexico area before moving to Los Angeles in 1940 and opening up a store called Sunrise Market.
During WWII, Grace and her family were interned in Gila River. After the war, the family returned to Los Angeles, where Grace began attending Stevenson Jr. High School. While in junior high school, she and her Japanese American girlfriends started an organization called the Reginas, a club whose members remain close even today. Grace graduated from Roosevelt High School in 1951 and L.A. County General Hospital School of Nursing in 1954. She worked as a nurse for a few years before having children.
She married Yoshihiro “Robert” Morinishi in June 1955 and had four children: Ron, Paul, Gale and Kent. Starting from 1968, the family moved across the country due to Bob’s job – Texas, New Mexico, New Hampshire and Westminster – before settling in Fountain Valley. Grace was very organized in handling all the cross-country moves.
In later years, Grace and Bob enjoyed taking ballroom dance classes at the Norwalk Community Center. Grace also enjoyed decorating her house, sewing her own clothes and making stained glass items, scrapbooks, dried flower arrangements and many other arts and crafts. She was a member of the Golden Eagles Golf Club and enjoyed playing card games weekly with her card group after each golf outing. She also loved to go fishing at Mammoth Lakes with her friends. She will be remembered as a sweet and loving daughter, sister, mother, grandmother and great-grandmother.
She is predeceased by her husband, Yoshihiro “Robert” and is survived by her children: Ron (Carolyn) of Kapa‘a, Hawai‘i, Paul of Fountain Valley, Gale Zimmerman of Beaverton, Oregon, Kent (Becky) of Aloha, Oregon; eight grandchildren; one great-grandson; siblings, Mary Oda, Thomas Ishimine and Donna Sill; and many nieces, nephews and other relatives.