Picture bride reached
age 110

In 1915, Hanayo Kami arrived in Hilo as a Japanese picture bride.

The 21-year-old would go on to spend 90 years in the small bay town, ultimately living through three wars and 15 presidents.

Kami, believed to have been one of the oldest people living in Hawaii, died Jan. 18 at the Life Care Center of Hilo. She was 110.

"She was spry into her 90s," said Albert Kami, one of her sons. "She recognized us until she passed away."

Though Kami is on no official list of the world's oldest people, she would have certainly fit in.

The 54th-oldest woman in the world was born on the same day in 1894 as Kami, according to the Gerontology Research Group, which keeps records on "supercentenarians," or those 110 years old and over. Robert Young, an investigator with the group, said yesterday that there are no records of anyone currently in the islands who is a supercentenarian.

But chances are good that she was the oldest person in the state, he added.

Kami was born in Hiroshima and came to the Big Island to marry an independent sugar cane planter. The couple had three boys together, the oldest of which is now in his mid-80s.

She was 51 when the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, her birthplace and family's hometown. She lost several relatives in the bombing, son Albert said.

One of Kami's sons, Hideo, fought in World War II. Albert Kami enlisted just before the war ended and served in occupied Japan.

In 1959, when Hawaii became a state, Hanayo Kami was already 64 years old.

Kami and her husband shared a birth year. He died in 1987 at 93 years of age.

When she was 102, Kami went into Hilo's Life Care Center. She was their oldest resident, Albert Kami said.

Kami is survived by her three sons, Hideo, Albert and Ralph. She also had six grandchildren and five great-grandchildren. Private services were held.