08-08-08
COURTESY OF GRACE CLINE / DECEMBER 2006
Twin sisters Kameyo Nakamura, left, and Tsuru Taba -- born on Aug. 8, 1910, in Kekaha, Kauai -- celebrate the holiday season at Honolulu Hale.
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Twin sisters turn 98 on lucky 08-08
Tsuru Taba and Kameyo Nakamura are twin sisters born on Aug. 8, 1910, in Kekaha, Kauai.
Do the math: This means they turn 98 tomorrow (an accomplishment unto itself) on 08-08-08, a confluence of numbers that spells extreme luck in Chinese and many other cultures.
Kameyo is in a care home now, and Tsuru has been bedridden since a heart attack in February, but the family will mark their shared birthday with a quiet dinner tomorrow at Tsuru's Manoa home.
"Mentally they're both very sharp," says Tsuru's daughter, Grace Cline.
The two were the second-born of five children, taken by their mother to Japan when they were 5. Kameyo stayed there, married and raised a family, but Tsuru returned to Hawaii at age 16, married, raised her four children and ran J.T. Taba Store on South School Street. She was also active in the Japanese congregation of the Salvation Army, where her husband, James, was a pastor.
So the twins were separated for most of their adult lives, until 1978, when Kameyo's husband died and she finally returned to Hawaii, taking a job as a housekeeper at Punahou School.
Cline says they have been very close since they were reunited, to the point that when Kameyo could no longer live alone, she chose a care home rather than move back to Japan to stay with her children.
Cline is looking forward to many more years together. "We pray that 8-8-10 will become a reality when we celebrate their 100th!"