Among the approximately 20 to 30 colonists from Aizu-Wakamatsu, Fukushima, were former samurai, ser­vants, and others who wished to start a new life in the United States after a devastating civil war (Boshin Sensou) during the Meiji Restoration period. Okei was a 17-year-old babysitter for the leader of the colony, German merchant Henry Schnell.

In spite of their efforts, the mul­berry and tea didn’t grow as much as expected, and Wakamatsu Colony failed within two years of its start. Schnell left for Japan with his Japa­nese wife and two daughters to seek fi­nancial support, but he never returned. Meanwhile, Okei, who began working for a neighboring ranch owned by the Veerkamp family grew sick and died shortly after Schnell left.

Matsunosuke Sakurai, another member of the Colony, remained with Okei and bought a tombstone for the young woman. A marble headstone still marks the grave, inscribed in both English and Japanese, “In Memories of OKEI, Died 1871, Aged 19 years. (A Japanese Girl).”

For nearly 45 years, Okei’s grave was forgotten, until Bunjiro Takeda,  reporter from the Nichibei Shimbun in San Francisco, wrote about the Waka­matsu Colony and Okei in 1916.

When Takeda first learned of the tombstone, which was found in a bush by a Japanese farmer who lived nearby, he thought, “This was an area that became popular during the Gold Rush period, so this must be a prostitute’s tombstone set up by Chinese miners.”

To learn more, Takeda visited a neighbor nearby to ask about the grave. He encountered an elderly man who tearfully recounted the story of Okei and the Colony. This man was Henry Veerkamp, the same man who had cared for Okei until her death and still owned the property—including the site of the former Wakamatsu Colony.

Once the article came out, many Japanese people visited and placed flowers on the grave. Most of the people sympathized with Okei’s story, saying they saw a little piece of themselves in Okei’s life as a first generation person, who died without any fortune.

Most of the time, the Veerkamps were generous to Japanese visitors—some of whom even toured from Japan—and allowed them to visit the grave at will. This went on even after Henry died and his son, Malcolm, became the new owner of the property.

However, after Malcolm’s death in 1999, his wife, Helen, was less welcoming to visitors, adding a lock to the entrance of the graveyard located at the bottom of the hill.

People had to make advance ar­rangements with the Veerkamps in order to visit the grave, and due to the inconvenience, the number of visitors to Okei’s grave thinned.

In 2004, Helen Veerkamp passed away and her three children were left to decide on the future of the prop­erty. This year, the children agreed to sell the property that has been in their family for the past 135 years to American River Conservancy, a non-profit organization for the protection and enhancement of the environment, located in Coloma’s Marshall Gold Discovery State Historic Park.

Kochi, a spokesman of the fund­raising effort, said, “I was thrilled when I met Philip Veerkamp for the first time in February. He was the el­dest son of the family, and I felt as if I met tonosama (a Lord). I knew that this person was the fourth generation of the family who taken care of and treated the colonists as neighbors even after the Colony failures. I was concerned that if the family sold the property to a private developer, the whole thing might be destroyed.”

In 1957, a memorial was estab­lished on a mountain plateau over­looking the city of Aizu Wakamatsu and was dedicated to Okei by a group of people in Fukushima, who were moved by her story in Gold Hill.

On June 7, 1969, as a focal event in the celebration of the centennial year of Japanese immigration to America, Japanese Consul General Seiichi Shima and then Governor Ronald Reagan dedicated a plaque and me­morial garden at the site of the former Wakamatsu Colony.

The plaque designates the site of the Wakamatsu Tea and Silk Farm Colony as California Historical Landmark No. 815.

Today, Gold Trail Union Elementary School is located next to Okei’s grave and has maintained a 27-year sister school friendship with Higashiyama Elementary School in Aizu Wakamatsu. Students of the schools write letters and visit.

In a recent interview with The Rafu Shimpo, Janet Sambucetti Cohen, a teacher at Gold Trail Union Elementary School, said, “Okei’s grave and the former Wakamatsu Colony are in our school’s backyard. It is a great opportunity for the students to learn the history of California. It is our dream to make the site a state park.”

ARC Director Alan Ehrgott, who is in­volved in the fundraising effort, said, “We are very excited about working with the Japanese American community and tak­ing the history of the Wakamatsu Colony to the next level. The Conservancy’s first goal is to acquire and protect the site. Our hope is to eventually see the Wakamatsu Colony rebuilt as a tribute to Japanese agriculture and the extraordinary contribu­tions the Japanese have made to California as a unified society and to California’s preeminence as an agricultural leader.”

Earlier this month, the ARC applied for a grant from The California Historical Endowment, which would help the ARC meet the target goal of raising $4.6 mil­lion to purchase the Veerkamp property by Nov. 30. If the ARC is unable to raise enough money, the Veerkamps may sell the land to a developer instead.

The Conservancy is currently working to identify foundations and corporations that can help by providing funding for acquisition and restoration. But this is just the beginning. A press day on Saturday, April 21 at 11 a.m. at the Wakamatsu Colony site will help kick off the fundrais­ing campaign.

“General public support is just as im­portant to the success of this campaign as any major donor,” said Ehrgott. “Without the awareness and generous contributions of the Japanese, Japanese American and other American communities, the Waka­matsu site will not be protected from subdivision and development.”

For more information about the Gold Hill-Wakamatsu Colony Campaign, call Rene Hamlin or Alan Ehrgott at (530) 621-1224 or email at arc@arconservancy.org. Fred Kochi at (408) 203-5361. Send all contributions to American River Con­servancy, P.O. Box 562, Coloma, Calif. 95613, and endorse all checks to ARC Gold Hill Wakamatsu Project.