According to the 1940 census, nearly two-thirds of Japanese Americans had jobs related to agriculture. Such work brought them into contact with members of the farming community. E. C. Loomis and Sons had built up one of the early ranches in Arroyo Grande and had also founded a feed and grain store in 1905. The three Loomis sons were Ivan, Clinton (better known as Buster), and Joseph (who went by his middle name, Vard).[1] Vard, the youngest, handled sales and visited farmers in the area to take their orders for feed and grain. Kazuo “Kaz” Ikeda remembered what it was like to work with him: “Vard was really friendly, and not only to the Japanese. When he talked to the farmers, it was not just for five minutes—he sat and talked for a half-hour or an hour. He really cared about people.”[2] According to The Heritage Press, “The most prominent supporters of Japanese Americans in Arroyo Grande were J. Vard Loomis and his brothers.”[3] Every year, the Loomises threw an annual “Japanese picnic” for their Nikkei customers, well-attended by families from Santa Maria to Morro Bay. According to Ivan’s son, John,
Dad would convince his suppliers . . . from the seed, fertilizer and insecticide companies to donate their products. . . . We had the local soda pop works . . . come out with a truck filled with iced-down soda pop. . . . On the day of the picnic Mr. Hayashi would come to our house with . . . crates of his own-grown lettuce, mayonnaise, and cases of canned shrimp and crab. . . . He’d mix it all up in large washtubs. . . . They served sirloin steak, bread, beans, crab salads, coffee, and soda pop, followed by strawberry, vanilla and chocolate ice cream cups for dessert. After eating, cigars and cigarettes were passed around . . . before the games started. . . . After the picnic we’d have a baseball game, run races, play all kinds of games, and everyone went away with a prize. . . . Those Japanese picnics were wonderful.[4]
In 1931, Vard helped organize “the Arroyo Grande Young Men’s Association baseball team [made entirely of Nisei players], which Vard coached for ten years, until the internment.”[5] His wife, Gladys, later reflected about those boys:
Never once was any disloyalty found in our area. Nearly all of the young men who played on Vard’s Nisei baseball team who were of draft age volunteered immediately. Not one was drafted. Almost all of them worked in military intelligence because they were bilingual. Some served in the 442nd Infantry Combat Unit, the most decorated America unit of the war.[6]
During the war, Vard and his brother, Buster, stored and helped to protect the evacuees’ property and possessions from vandals and thieves. According to The Heritage Press, “The Loomis’s stood by their Japanese American friends, even though others in the community called them Jap-lovers.”[7] They followed the teachings and example of Jesus to love their neighbors as themselves (Matthew 22:39).
The Bible is filled with such family imagery. Christians are called the “children of God” (John 1:12; Romans 8:16), “members of the household of God” (Ephesians 2:19), and “brothers and sisters in Christ” (James 2:15). Many friends may come and go, but family endures forever (Romans 8:17). Scripture also teaches that Christians must do good for all, but especially for the family of God. As Paul wrote to his young disciple, Timothy, “For to this end we toil and strive, because we have our hope set on the living God, who is the Savior of all people, especially of those who believe” (1 Timothy 4:10). Also in Galatians 6:10, “So then, as we have opportunity, let us do good to everyone, and especially to those who are of the household of faith.” Vard Loomis and his family experienced tremendous joy in serving the Lord by doing good for the Nikkei community. As Christians, however, they were also looking forward to a glorious reunion in heaven with an eternal celebration and the ultimate family picnic (Revelation 19:9). Perhaps there will even be baseball.
[1] Vard was elected class president at Stanford University in 1931 and starred as a pitcher on the baseball team. He later became a popular adult Sunday school teacher at a Presbyterian Church in Arroyo Grande (now called Grace Bible Church).
[2] Kazuo Ikeda, interview conducted by Shizue Seigel (13 September 2004), cited in Seigel, In Good Conscience, 81. Kaz was so grateful for Vard’s loyalty during the internment that he would later name one of his sons after him. Then in the 1980’s, when the Ikeda family built a housing development on a portion of their land, they named one of the streets Vard Loomis Way.
[3] Heritage Press 2, no. 6 (August 2007), cited in Draper-Longley, “Joseph Vard Loomis: A Silent Hero” (29 October 2014), accessed at https://familytreelove.wordpress.com/2014/10/29/joseph-vard-loomis-a-silent-hero/comment-page-1.
[4] John Loomis and Gordon Bennett, John and Gordon: The Old Days, 1932-1944 in Arroyo Grande, California (Arroyo Grande, CA: Boococks of America Press, 2002), 56-57.
[5] Seigel, In Good Conscience, 82.
[6] Dan and Liz Kreiger, “Baseball and the Good Neighbor Policy,” War Comes to the Middle Kingdom: Vol. 1: 1939-1942, eds. Stan Harth, Liz Kreiger and Dan Kreiger (San Luis Obispo, CA: EZ Nature Books, 1991), 161-63.
[7] Cited in Draper-Longley, “A Silent Hero.”
