September 3, 1925 – March 2, 2026
Our beloved and beautiful matriarch, Kumiko Shibuya, died on Monday, 2 March 2026, following 100 years and 6 months of an exceptional life.
The middle child of Sumiye and Yoshihisa Yamanaka, Kumi was born on 3 September 1925 in South Pasadena, California. She was a student at San Marino High School until 1942, when she and her family were taken to the Gila River Internment Camp in Arizona. In 1944, after finishing high school, seeking freedom and work, she moved to Chicago. In 1945, she met and married her husband, Danny. They were an amazing and vibrant couple. After the World War II’s end, they were allowed to return to the West Coast. They moved to Hawaii for a short time and eventually settled in Southern California’s San Fernando Valley. They raised three boys, and started a lawnmower shop that grew into Valley Power Equipment.
Depending on when or where you met her — as a pom-pom girl in high school, behind the front desk at Gene Shacove’s famous hair salon in Beverly Hills, visiting in Las Vegas “when it used to be glamorous,” accounting and doing payroll upstairs at the shop, surf fishing with Danny, cooking for a gathering, playing Shanghai rummy, listening to the Dodgers, sharing at Centenary United Methodist — a defining trait endures.
Kumi was unfailingly gracious and generous with others and in the situations life presented. Inclined toward the good, she always tried (as she would say) “to make the best of things.” And in her trying, a world of goodness opened up around her, a home and an expanding community of heartfelt welcome and an exceptional kind of ease. She was our joy.
Kumi was preceded in death by her younger sister, Sayuri Hayashi in 1999; her dear husband, Danny Shibuya in 2005; her older brother, Takaaki Yamanaka in 2014; her son, Scott in 2018; and her best friend, Lu Okamura who died in 2023. Kumi is survived by sons, Kevin and Daniel; daughters-in-law, Linda, Jan, and Carla; grandchildren, Jason, Kelsey, Sarah, and Anna; step-grandchildren, Victor, Samantha, and Vanessa Fonti; step-granddaughter-in-law, Colie Fonti; granddaughter-in-law, Trudi; grandson-in-law, Roland Greene; great-grandchild, Aliya; and great-step-grandchild, Jadyn Simmons. Kumi’s skilled and much loved caregivers: Ana Romero, Ana Castillo and Norie Menzies share in our grief and gratitude.
The family wishes to thank the excellent staff on Units 5 and 6 West and the Palliative Care team at Kaiser Permanente Hospital, Mike Tamaki at Fukui Mortuary, the crematory staff at Evergreen Cemetery, and the community of Centenary United Methodist Church.
www.fukuimortuary.com (213) 626-0441