Church strengthens spirituality in all

Richard Nakanishi is a local author, as well as the historian for Sturge Presbyterian Church. According to Nakanishi, the predecessor to Sturge Church started meeting informally around 1924, at the home of Hidematsu Tamura on North Grant in San Mateo. Before long, the community began to call itself the Japanese Independent Union Church.

In 1925, the namesake for the Sturge Church arrived in San Mateo. Dr. Ernest Adolphus Sturge had lived as a small child in Cleveland, Ohio, before his family moved to the east coast of the United States. He traveled to England and Scotland at the age of seventeen, to visit ancestral roots.

By the turn of the century, Sturge had become a medical doctor, as well as a missionary for the Presbyterian Board of National Missions. He traveled throughout western Asia, including Siam (Thailand), and Japan. In 1904, as evidence of the regard the Japanese people had for him, Sturge received the award of the Order of the Rising Sun by Emperor

Meiji. The award was given to those who foster amicable relations

between Japan and the United States. By then, Dr. Sturge had developed a

great appreciation of diverse cultures and peoples, a trait which would

serve him well in the future.

Leaving his home of retirement in Carmel, California, Sturge and

his wife moved to San Mateo, settling in a home on Elm Street. As

Director of Evangelism under the Presbyterian Board of National

Missions, his home became the meeting place for the infant church. At

the same time, the Congregational Church of San Mateo played a welcoming

and supportive role to the burgeoning new community.

Dr. Sturge died in 1924, leaving his five thousand dollar home to

the church. The congregation used the money as a basis for fundraising.

They eventually purchased land on which to construct the first remnant

of the church buildings. In 1938 , the community dedicated the new

structure at 25 South Humboldt, first known as known as Sturge Memorial

Cottage.

Four years later, the development of the church would be rudely

interrupted, to say the least. On February 19, 1942, President Franklin

D. Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066, giving United States military

commanders on the west coast the authority to establish geographic zones

from which "any or all persons" might be excluded. Due to spreading

fear of sabotage and espionage in the wake of the Japanese attack on

Pearl Harbor in December 1941, the U.S. Army removed more than 110,000

persons of Japanese ancestry from the western third of Washington, all

of Oregon, and the western half of California. Eight hundred ninety one

individuals came from San Mateo County. Of the total interned, 48.7% had

been native-born American citizens. Of those, one hundred fifty three

were children under twelve. Most of their properties and belongings were

confiscated.

With its congregation interned, Sturge Memorial Cottage shut down

for the remainder of the war. However, some of the members left their

belongings in the cottage for safekeeping. At the end of the war, when

the internees returned to San Mateo with no place to live, the cottage

served as hostel for returning members. For the next six months, the

church building provided cots, kitchen and bathing facilities for its

now homeless members. Once they had all been resettled, the congregation

would begin the completion of the church complex.

The original cottage still stands, now occupying the center of

church complex

Work on the sanctuary - to left of the cottage - began on May 24, 1953,

dedicated in March of 1954. The sanctuary features a plain neo-mission

facade, with a single, pyramidal tower rising ten feet above the roof,

thirty feet off the ground. The education facilities - to the south of

the original building - had been completed in 1960.

In 1988, many members of the church received reparations through

the Civil Liberties Act of 1988. This Congressional Act authorized the

payment of $20,000 in redress to each individual victimized in 1942 by

Executive Order 9066.

Although originally a Christian church for the Japanese Community,

since 1989 - during the pastorate of Gerald Chinen - Sturge Presbyterian

Church has developed into multi-ethnic community, including Chinese

Americans, Korean Americans, European Americans, as well as Japanese

Americans. The church still offers a Japanese language Sunday service,

however, for those who remember the original community. "We recently

celebrated the birthday of a man in his nineties", Nakanishi says, "who

had been married sixty-one years ago at Sturge Cottage"

Dr. Margo Houts was installed last month as interim pastor, the

first female pastor in the history of Sturge Presbyterian Church. Her

job will be to help help the congregation determine its direction in

light of its expanding diversity.

Richard Nakanishi paraphrases Houts when he says, "Sturge Church is

a place of hope. God will remember the congregation for giving hope to

people in times of despair"<