Teresa Maebori’s parents had been married for two weeks when the Japanese Air Force bombed the Pearl Harbor Naval Base in Hawaii, killing 2,403 Americans and turning what should have been a blissful period for the couple into a hellish ordeal.

Perceived as a national security threat, the Maeboris, of Seattle, and more than 100,000 other Japanese-Americans were rounded up and “relocated” to internment camps by the U.S. government. The couple was detained at what would become the Tule Lake Segregation Center. At the center, they became parents of daughter Teresa, born in the California labor camp in February of 1945.

Now, Teresa Maebori, who has lived in Northwest Philadelphia for most of her adult life, has decided to leave her longtime neighborhood and head back to Seattle, the hometown that her parents were taken from and later returned to during a painful period for which U.S. officials later apologized. On Sept 5, Maebori, a retired teacher who taught at Germantown Friends School and Arcadia University, will hit the road with her good friend Barbara Wybar of Chestnut Hill, and begin their “girls trip” to the nation’s Northwest.

“I am excited to be starting anew,” Maebori said. “But I am sad to be leaving good friends.”

When she sets out for Seattle, Maebori will be part of a team of  “two almost-80-year-old ladies driving all across the country,” said Wybar, who intends to fly back home after visiting Seattle, where she also once lived. 

Maebori’s roots in the Northwest extend back to her grandparents immigration to the U.S. in the early 1900s. Maebori’s dad worked making clay pots and her mother graduated from the University of Washington in 1937.  

“She was a dress designer and made home arts and many wedding dresses. Both of them were second-generation born in the U.S,” Maebori told the Local. “When my mom went to college, she said that a counselor told her she would never get a job because of her Japanese ancestry. But she was a gentle person.”

After the bombing of Pearl Harbor, race prejudice, war hysteria and the failure of political leadership, including that of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, led to the internments, Maebori said. “No one had any idea where the men were taken. Two-thirds of those interned were American-born, but 'internment' is a euphemism. Those places fit the definition of concentration camps.” (The cottages where the Japanese-Americans were kept in Idaho are now used for low-income housing for immigrants.)

When the family was interned, “there were armed guards and barbed wire,” Maebori continued. “My parents' landlord said he would hold onto their belongings, and he did. My parents could only take what they could carry.”

Maebori said her brother was born in that camp, in 1943 – before the family was allowed to return to their home in 1945.

“My parents were allowed to go to a labor camp in Caldwell, Idaho, that had been built to house Okies (Oklahomans who left their homes during the 1930s' 'Dust Bowl'). They harvested sugar beets that were used in the manufacture of industrial alcohol, tires and bombs.”

Once back in Seattle, the family reclaimed their lives. Maebori described her family’s philosophy as “You don’t dwell on what happened. You move and do better.” Maebori went on to graduate from the University of Washington with a degree in English, history and education. She joined the Peace Corps and spent two years in Micronesia, then back to the U.S., where she taught one year in rural Indiana and two years in Washington, D.C. and four more years teaching kids with learning differences. 

Then a friend at Germantown Friends told her to apply there, and she did. For 35 years, she taught third and fourth grade until 2012, when she just taught fourth grade.

In 2015, Teresa started thinking about retiring to the Seattle area to be close to her family, since she is the only member now on the East Coast. She had two brothers who have passed away and two sisters who still live on the West Coast.

So, after years of deliberation, Maebori will be leaving Mt. Airy permanently on Sept. 5 and driving to Seattle. 

“Our Quaker Meeting will have a sort-of sendoff for Teresa on Sunday, Sept. 1, after meeting for worship,” Wybar said. “She is really brave.”  Maebori said she is filled with mixed emotions, looking forward to new adventures, but mourning the fractured connection to the place she has lived for decades.

“I do hope to come back to visit,” Maebori said. “I have made deep friendships here. Philadelphia has been home to me and my family, and I can still see my friends through Zoom and Facetime.”

Len Lear can be reached at lenlear@chestnuthilllocal.com.