Hilo businessman Tsugio Nishimura dies at 100
By Christie Wilson
Advertiser Neighbor Island Editor
Hilo businessman Tsugio Nishimura, whose appliance store survived two tsunamis and a wave of big-box retailers, died Thursday at the Hilo Medical Center. He was 100.
Six decades ago, Nishimura and a partner were set to celebrate the grand opening of Modern Appliance Co., which sold appliance parts and radios, on April 1, 1946, when a deadly tsunami swept through Hilo, killing 121 people on the Big Island and wiping out the Kamehameha Avenue store and hundreds of other businesses and homes.
Modern Appliance reopened on Mamo Street and flourished in the country's post-war binge on consumer goods. Nishimura eventually bought out his partner, said son Paul Nishimura, 69, who joined the family business in 1957 after graduating from the University of Hawai'i-Manoa.
Modern Appliance faced ruin again from the 1960 tsunami. The store didn't have insurance, but Tsugio Nishimura was determined to rebuild, finally moving the business to its current location on higher ground on Kilauea Avenue.
Nishimura was born Dec. 4, 1904, in Kumamoto, Japan. He came to the Big Island in 1923 and attended Hilo Boarding School, where he learned English. In 1925 he got his first real job, pumping gas at Von Hamm Young Co., and two years later was promoted to a refrigerator and radio salesman.
In the economic upheaval following World War II, Nishimura was laid off from his job. Determined to make a secure financial future for his wife and four children, Nishimura decided to start his own business.
Paul Nishimura said Modern Appliance managed to survive the onslaught of big-box retailers and satisfy generations of customers by providing personalized service and repairs, and by "taking care of the customer and being upfront and truthful with them."
"My father ingrained in me the importance of keeping the customers pleased to keep them coming back," he said.
The elder Nishimura retired in the mid-1970s and stayed active until the end of his life. He was an avid golfer, a bonsai hobbyist and an instructor in kendo, a form of martial arts using slotted bamboo sticks.
"I still have the lumps on top of my head to prove it," his son said.
Nishimura was particularly devoted to haiku, a Japanese poetry form usually about nature or the seasons. He was a member of the Shoukai Haiku group and the Yukuharu Haiku Society in Japan. "It kept him going for a number of years," Paul Nishimura said. "I always picked him up on the first Wednesday of every month to take him to the haiku meeting" at Taishoji Soto Mission.
He received an imperial decoration, the Order of the Sacred Treasure with Silver Rays, from the government of Japan in 1995.
He is survived by sons Paul, Sidney and Clifford; a daughter, Ellen Yamamoto; and eight grandchildren.
Visitation will begin at 1 p.m. Saturday at Higashi Hongwanji Mission in Hilo, with a service at 2 p.m. Dodo Mortuary is handling the arrangements.
