[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 145 (1999), Part 16]
[Senate]
[Pages 23562-23563]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]



                     IN MEMORIAM--MARY MIKAMI ROUSE

  Mr. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, my purpose in coming to the floor today 
is to tell you about an extraordinary Alaskan family. And to pay 
tribute to a mother who took from her immigrant heritage and from her 
adopted Alaskan home, the courage and tenacity to excel at a time when 
successful women were not the norm and too often uncelebrated. Her name 
is Mary Mikami Rouse. She died August 7th at the age of 87.
  Her story begins in Japan with the arrival of a fifth son in the 
Mikami family in 1864. Shortly after the birth of Mary's father, Goro 
Mikami, Japan began a period of social and political revolution and 
tempestuous change. The Shogunate lost power and Japan's imperial house 
was restored to a position of prestige and authority. The feudal system 
was eroding and there was a remarkable degree of westernization in all 
areas of Japanese life.
  Goro Mikami's father was a vassal of the Shogun, an admiral who was 
ultimately responsible for a navy failure that contributed to the 
subsequent loss of power by the Shogun. His sense of honor demanded he 
commit seppuku, or suicide for that loss. Fortuitously, the emperor 
stopped him from that action, pardoned him and made him the head of the 
country's new naval academy. In that position he got to know a number 
of American naval officers.
  As the fifth son to a family that was Samurai, or part of the 
aristocracy, Goro Mikami made a decision that reflected the changing 
times in which he found himself. He rebelled against an arranged 
marriage that was in the offing and he and a friend, who were studying 
in Tokyo around 1885, decided to head for the American West. Plans went 
awry and the friend stayed behind, but Mikami took the ship to a new 
life. He settled in San Francisco where at some point he attended the 
University of California at Berkeley to learn English. Two of his 
brothers went on to serve in Japan's diplomatic corps. The family name 
was Kondo, Goro was given the last name of Mikami in order to rescue a 
branch of the family that was dying out--not unusual in Japanese 
culture.
  Rumor says Mikami was drawn to the goldfields in Alaska, and there is 
some evidence he may have worked as a civilian aboard a U.S. Coast 
Guard Cutter. By this time, he had Americanized his name from Goro to 
George. But whatever his adventures, Mikami made a monumental decision 
in 1910, to take a trip back to Japan. His school friend had become a 
famous lawyer in the intervening years, and put together a huge 
homecoming for Mikami. At the homecoming events he met Mine Morioka, 
who had served as a nurse in the Russian Japanese War. They married and 
returned to the States in 1911, this time to Seattle. In 1912, Mary 
Mikami was born.
  About 1915, the family, including Mary's younger sister Alice, moved 
to Seward, Alaska. It appears George found work on the Alaskan railroad 
then being constructed between Seward and Anchorage. That same year, 
Mary's brother Harry was born. By 1918, the family had moved on to 
Anchorage where they opened George's Tailor Shop on Fourth avenue 
between ``B'' and ``C" Streets. Flora was born in 1919, and the family 
was complete. The Mikamis were either the first or one of the first 
Japanese families to settle in Anchorage.
  Prior to the 1940s, Anchorage's population never moved above 2,000. 
Alaska was still a territory and not a stopping ground for the faint of 
heart. It was peopled with pioneers and adventurers seeking wealth, 
anonymity or a new way of life. The Mikami family persevered and 
prospered in this still rough and tumble atmosphere. They met the 
challenges of a new business, a young family, assimilating into a 
different culture and mastering a new language.
  The second daughter Alice Mikami Snodgrass, who still lives in 
Palmer, Alaska, remembers her mother as a strict disciplinarian. She 
recalls the lure of swing-sets and seesaws and clamoring friends, while 
her mother kept the Mikami kids inside until they finished their 
schoolwork. Even in summer, there were sums to do and chores before 
play.
  In Japanese tradition, children were kept at home until they were 
five and then sent to school. Up to that point, the Mikami children 
spoke Japanese. Mary's relatives explain that she was highly 
traumatized when she entered school and realized she had to learn 
English.
  But Mary's mother's dedication to her children's scholarship resulted 
in all four children being named valedictorian of their respective 
graduating classes in Anchorage's public high school. Mary Mikami took 
the honors first and subsequently attended the Alaska Agricultural 
College and School of Mines in Fairbanks. She graduated with highest 
honors in 1934. The next year the College was renamed the University of 
Alaska at Fairbanks. Her sister Alice recalls that Doctor Charles E. 
Bunnell, the first President of the University, at the time literally 
came to the towns, visited with the families, and recruited students by 
bringing along a University basketball team to play the local high 
school and community teams.
  After graduating, Mary joined an anthropological expedition jointly 
sponsored by the college and the Department of the Interior to St. 
Lawrence Island, located in the windswept Bering Sea between Alaska and 
Siberia. The expedition studied Alaskan prehistory. She was the only 
woman on the team; another team member, Roland Snodgrass, was to become 
her brother-in-law.
  After the expedition, she went to work for the University of Alaska 
Museum and was considering graduate school, perhaps at Columbia 
University. Instead, she met Froelich G. Rainey, a Yale graduate who 
became the head of the Museum. He influenced her to go to Yale instead 
and helped her make connections there. The intrepid Mary left Alaska 
for the first time in her young life and took the steamer to Seattle 
and then the train across country to a different challenge--a new 
world. Like her mother and father before her, she entered a

[[Page 23563]]

new life with few connections to the past, and no one to greet her and 
ease the transition.
  She adapted and continued her success. She met and married fellow 
graduate student Irving Rouse. Both received Ph.D's and remained at 
Yale for lifelong careers of learning and teaching. Mary Mikami Rouse 
was a visiting lecturer, an editor of translations, instruction 
assistant at the Institute of Oriental Languages and a research 
assistant. She also served as an editorial assistant for American 
Antiquity, Journal of the Society for American Archaeology. Her 
husband, now retired, was the editor of that journal and is a well 
known anthropologist specializing in the Caribbean.
  Back in Alaska, her brother and sisters followed her to the 
University of Alaska and brother Harry also received a Ph.D from Yale. 
Sister Alice married Roland Snodgrass who later served as Director of 
the Division of Agriculture in Gov. Walter Hickel's first 
administration. Their son Jack is an attorney in Palmer. Mary's 
youngest sister, Flora Mikami Newcomb lives in Vancouver, B.C. Her 
brother, Harry, is deceased.
  The elder Mikamis sold the tailor shop and retired to Los Angeles 
just before World War II. Instead of the surcease they sought in 
retirement, they were moved to a Japanese internment camp in Arizona--a 
fate the four children escaped. In honor of their parents, the four 
Mikami children established the Mikami Scholarship at the University of 
Alaska Fairbanks, and it is available today to any sophomore or junior 
student.
  Mary and Irving Rouse were the parents of two boys, Peter M. Rouse of 
Washington, D.C. and David C. Rouse of Philadelphia. David is a 
landscape architect and urban designer. In this body, we are most 
familiar with Pete Rouse, who many of you will recognize as the Chief 
of Staff to our esteemed Minority Leader Tom Daschle. Mary may have 
been as stern about studies as was her mother because Pete has a B. A. 
from Colby College, an M.A. from the London School of Economics and an 
M. A. from Harvard University. In the mid-1970s, Pete and Tom Daschle 
were both legislative assistants to Sen. James Abourezk, D-S.D. While 
at the Kennedy School at Harvard, Pete became friends with an Alaskan 
named Terry Miller, who was to become an Alaskan Lt. Governor. In 1979, 
Miller asked Pete to come to Alaska and work for him in the State 
House, reestablishing Pete's family ties with the state.
  The winds of political fortune soon brought him back to Capitol Hill 
and Chief-of-Staff positions with Representative Richard Durbin, 
Representative Thomas Daschle and then Senator Daschle. But Pete never 
forgot Alaska and his many friends there. His continuing efforts and 
interest in our State are greatly appreciated.
  Mary Mikami's life was an American success story. Hers was an example 
of achievement against great odds. She honored both of her cultures and 
her family. She was a combination of Samurai pride, Alaskan fortitude 
and New England grit. Mary was her own woman before anyone had heard 
the term ``women's liberation''. She was also a lifelong Democrat, and 
I'm sure was always very proud of the path her son has followed. Today, 
I join my colleagues in expressing condolences to the family and 
friends of Mary Mikami Rouse. Alaska is proud to claim her as one of 
its pioneers.
  Mr. DASCHLE. Mr. President, I join the Senator from Alaska in 
remembering Mary Mikami Rouse. Mary Rouse recently passed away, at the 
age of 87, leaving behind an accomplished family and a legacy of 
academic achievement.
  She was born in the United States in 1912, the daughter of Japanese 
immigrants who had come to the United States to seek their fortune. 
Growing up in Alaska, Mary Mikami excelled academically and graduated 
with the highest honors from Alaska Agricultural College and the School 
of Mines, which later became the University of Alaska.
  After completing her college work in Alaska, she traveled to New 
Haven, CT, where she attended Yale University, where she met and 
married Irving Rouse and earned her Ph.D. Throughout her life she 
continued living in New Haven, working as lecturer, translator, and 
instructor at Yale's Institute for Oriental Languages.
  With her husband Irving, Mary had two sons, David Rouse, an urban 
landscape architect in Philadelphia, and Peter Rouse, my chief of staff 
and a man who has been my friend and closest adviser for now more than 
15 years.
  All of us who know and work with Pete are aware of the enormous 
influence his mother Mary had on him. His success in life stems from 
the legacy of his mother--a keen intelligence, unparalleled integrity 
and judgment, and basic human kindness.
  The values he brings to this institution each day are, no doubt, the 
product of his upbringing and his mother's influence. In fact, it is 
her character we have the privilege of seeing reflected in her son each 
and every day.
  For those of us who have the good fortune to work with Pete Rouse, 
there is no way we can thank his mother Mary for all that she has done 
to influence his life, for all that she did to ensure we have the good 
fortune to call Pete Rouse our friend, to call him, now, our coworker, 
and for me to rely upon him each and every moment of every day to the 
extent that I do.
  I, and all who know Pete, share his loss now. We are grateful that 
she has had the good life, the successful life, the extraordinary life 
that she has had, and we all wish Pete and his family well under these 
circumstances.

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