One of the best things about exploring the history in and around our neighborhood is the surprises you discover. Like the fact that there’s a charming 134-year-old Japanese Cemetery hidden deep within the grassy confines of Rose City Cemetery & Funeral Home at 5625 NE Fremont St., just a stone’s throw from Beaumont-Wilshire.
The Japanese Cemetery began in 1890, when local railroads were looking for a place to bury single Japanese men who’d worked for them, says Jon Ollerenshaw, Rose City Cemetery’s general manager. The bigger cemetery, started 16 years later, eventually surrounded the Japanese one, which is still privately owned by the Japanese Ancestral Society of Portland.
Separated from other gravesites by a black wrought-iron fence, the Japanese Cemetery is the final resting place for an estimated 400 to 500 members of the local Japanese community.
Many graves, some marked by large rocks rather than gravestones, feature Japanese script and images. Names of the deceased, sometimes including several family members, are clearly of Japanese origin: Wakabayashi, Katasunaya, Kimura, Nakaji, Oda, Furumasu, Naito, and Sasaki, for example.
The cemetery also features a monument to Japanese-American citizens who perished in several of this nation’s wars — a lasting memorial to their patriotism.