Tailor kept generations of military fit for duty

When Rose Lee closes her small tailor shop near Fort Shafter’s Middle Street gate for the last time this afternoon, she will leave behind nearly a half-century of work ensuring that service members from grunts in the foxhole to generals and admirals looked sharp in uniform.

Portraits of Army and Air Force generals and top enlisted soldiers who have sought her sewing skills adorn a wall of her shop at 2412 Rose St. in Kalihi, which she has sold.

“It’s going to be sad,” said Lee, 79. “It’s been a long time. I have all these great memories.”

Lee has sewn for commanders of the 25th Infantry Division at Schofield Barracks and Fort Shafter, leaders and enlisted members of the Hawaii Army National Guard and the Pacific Army Reserve, leaders of the U.S. Pacific Command at Camp Smith and the Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor.

Other appreciative customers include U.S. Sen. Daniel Inouye (“I have made shirts for Senator Inouye and altered his clothes through the years,” she said), former Army Chief of Staff and now U.S. Veterans Affairs Secretary Eric “Ric” Shinseki and Lt. Gen. Francis Wiercinski, head of the Army in the Pacific.

“I just put up his picture,” Lee said of Wiercinski. The general, who served as deputy commander of the 25th Infantry Division from 2005 to 2006 and as deputy commander of U.S. Army Pacific from 2007 to 2008, said in return that Lee “will be missed by all those who have served before me in U.S. Army Pacific.”

Inouye said in an email, “Rose’s faithful service to our soldiers and community is to be commended. I wish her well and nothing but the best for the future.”

Lee met Shinseki — who retired in 2003 as the highest-ranking Asian American in the U.S. military with four stars on his shoulders — when he was a captain and was recuperating at Tripler Army Medical Center from his wounds from the Vietnam War. “He used to come to my shop at Fort Shafter,” Lee said.

“I’ve seen them all,” she said. “I’ve helped some of them when they were in high school junior ROTC, through their years at the University of Hawaii and ROTC and when they became generals.

“I feel gratified. I still see many of the old-timers. They still come in to visit me.”

Brig. Gen. Gary Hara, commander of the Hawaii Army National Guard, has known Lee for more than 30 years and said his three brothers — Lt. Col. Ken Hara, Sgt. Maj. Dennis Hara and 1st Sgt. Larry Hara — have also benefited from her skills.

“When I first walked into her shop in Kalihi, I was just a lieutenant and was struck by the pictures of all the generals on her wall,” Gary Hara said. “But she has always treated me more like a family member. I, too, consider her family. She has been so helpful.”

Dennis Kamimura said Lee’s help was greatly appreciated when he received his first star as a brigadier general as commander of the Hawaii Army National Guard’s 29th Infantry Brigade in 1996. “She knew exactly what I needed since my wife and I didn’t know what to do,” he said.

Kamimura said Lee continued to bestow her personal knowledge and help when he was promoted again to major general as deputy commanding general of U.S. Army Pacific four years later.

Wiercinski said in an email, “Rose took the time to ensure that I looked my best in the Army uniform, just as she has done for all the previous commanding generals. While she didn’t wear a uniform, she understood what it meant to wear it. I appreciate her service to our nation and the great contributions she made to every man and woman in uniform.”

Like many of the military members she knows, Lee’s family has been touched by tragedy. Her son-in-law, Michael Collins, was an investment banker who was killed in the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center in 2001.

A few years ago her business grew beyond sewing on patches and altering uniforms. Working with two South Korean tailors, who were well-known by military members stationed in Seoul, Lee sold custom-made suits and shirts until the cost of importing suits became too expensive.

Since then her business has grown to include prom dresses and wedding alterations.

Lee has had to move her shop several times since she assumed the alteration concession at Fort Shafter from her mother, Clara Park, in 1966.

Lee’s family moved from Lanai to Wahiawa and she graduated from Leilehua High School in 1950. She said her mother ran the tailor shop at Fort Shafter for 20 years. She occasionally worked in her mother’s tailor shop, but said she never intended to take over the business and was happy being an Army wife. Her husband is retired Army Sgt. Maj. Henry Lee; they live in Wahiawa.

In 1986, Lee lost the concession at Fort Shafter and relocated a few blocks away in the Kalihi Shopping Center. When the shopping center closed five years ago, she moved to the Rose Street site.

Lee, who works six days a week from 8:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m., decided to retire when a buyer approached her with an offer. At least one of her two full-time seamstresses plans to stay on with the new owner.