Whitmore Village couple honored with gym’s renaming

City officials renamed a Whitmore Village gym Saturday to recognize a couple for their contributions to the community.

Two of the couple’s sons helped unveil the plaque bearing the facility’s new name: Torao &Sumie Matsumoto Gym.

Affixed to the outer wall of the gym at Whitmore Community Park, the plaque describes the Matsumotos as “outstanding supporters” of Whitmore Village.

The Matsumotos ran Whitmore Supermarket, the only grocery store in Whitmore Village at the time, just a stone’s throw from the gymnasium. (Another market now stands where the Matsumotos’ store was.)

Their store was a gathering place for the community for decades, providing services such as cashing checks for plantation workers and allowing community members to buy groceries on credit. (The family is not related to Matsumoto’s Shave Ice.)

State Sen. Donovan Dela Cruz introduced a resolution to rename the gym after the Matsumotos when he was still a city councilman. The resolution was passed in 2010, but the renaming ceremony was stalled by other priorities.

Dela Cruz, who grew up in Whitmore Village, said when he introduced the resolution he wanted to do something so people would remember the history and values of the community.

He recalled walking to the store in the ’80s as a young boy, and said the Matsumotos were compassionate, generous, disciplined, hard-working and humble.

“No task was beneath them,” Dela Cruz said. “They would lead by example. They showed a lot of humility by doing some of the most difficult tasks themselves.”

He said Whitmore Village is a tight-knit community formed by plantation camps that were merged in the ’40s and ’50s and that the Matsumotos’ store played a central role.

“Everyone saw each other at the store,” he said. “It was kind of a central point where you would see everybody. It was either the church or the store.”

One of the Matsumotos’ four sons, Toraki Matsumoto, served as a Honolulu city councilman for 17 years before his death in 2015. He helped secure the funding for the gymnasium that now bears his parents’ names.

The Matsumotos, born in Japan, did not meet until 1921 when Sumie arrived on Oahu as Torao’s picture bride. After their marriage, the couple worked for Hawaiian Pineapple Co., living at Kemoo Camp on the North Shore.

They bought their first store at the camp two years later, opened another store in the ’40s and started the Whitmore Village store in the ’50s. They retired in the ’60s, but stayed active in the community while their sons ran the store before selling it about two decades later.

City Managing Director Roy Amemiya, who also grew up in Whitmore Village, recalled signing his name to buy groceries on credit at the store as an 8-year-old in the ’60s. He recalled one summer when the Matsumotos helped the neighborhood kids attend the Summer Fun program in Wahiawa.

The kids didn’t have transportation because their parents were working, so the Matsumotos bought a used school bus and had their son take the kids to the program and bring them back.

“They were just pillars of this community,” he said.

Guy Matsumoto, grandson of the Matsumotos who worked in the store as a child and received Slushies as pay, said his grandfather was quiet, but always happy and whistling. His grandmother was an especially hard worker.

Harold Matsumoto, who helped run the store, said his parents allowed customers to buy on credit “just to make sure they didn’t starve.”

He said he was honored by the renaming ceremony.

“I didn’t think this would happen,” he said.