Jack Fujiki; worked at the Farm Journal

When, in 1990, Jack Fujiki experienced the first of several strokes, he worked hard to recover, said his daughter, Sandra Bazar Kolongowski.

In that year, when he turned 70, he became a volunteer at Our Lady of Lourdes Medical Center in Camden.

And as a member of its stroke club, his daughter said, he encouraged others to overcome the effects of their strokes.

"He was very determined to bring himself to normal, which would have been to walk again," his daughter said.

Over the years, "he was able to learn how to drive again," she said, "and he could walk with a cane."

On Saturday, Nov. 19, Mr. Fujiki, 95, a former office supplier at the Farm Journal, died at Cooper River West, an assisted living facility in Pennsauken, where he had lived since 2006.

Born in Watsonville, Calif., Mr. Fujiki graduated from Watsonville High School and in the late 1930s went to work with his family on the fruit and vegetable farm they owned.

But after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941, brought the United States into World War II, President Franklin D. Roosevelt in February 1942 issued an executive order that resulted in West Coast residents of Japanese heritage being sent to detention camps.

In Poston, Ariz. and then in Heart Mountain, Wyo., Mr. Fujiki served as a police captain at such camps.

Allowed to leave in 1944, Mr. Fujiki and his parents' family moved to Cumberland County, N.J., where Seabrook Farms hired them and other camp residents to help produce its frozen foods, his daughter said.

Not long after he arrived in South Jersey, Mr. Fujiki was hired by Farm Journal, the monthly periodical based on Washington Square. (The 139-year-old publication announced in June 2016 that it was moving to near Kansas City, Kan.)

From 1944, his daughter said, Mr. Fujiki "handled all the office supplies for the building."

Besides that, "he was very involved with the employees society for a while," she said. When workers "had a problem, they went to my father and he acted as a mediator."

Mr. Fujiki retired in 1987.

For many of his years at the publication, she said, "on weekends he worked at a local gas station, as an auto mechanic."

At the station in Mount Ephraim, "he always liked to tinker" with car problems, even though he was working a seven-day week.

Mr. Fujiki, she said, was "a very hard worker."

In 1947, he married his wife, Kimiko, whom he had met that year at a Philadelphia social event for Japanese Americans.

In 1948 they and their daughter moved to Mount Ephraim, where they lived for decades. His wife died in January 2006 and he moved to Cooper River West in June 2006.

Besides his daughter, Mr. Fujiki is survived by a grandson and two great-grandchildren.

A viewing was set from 9 to 11 a.m. Friday, Nov. 25, at the Terranova Funeral Home, 402 White Horse Pike, Haddon Heights, before an 11 a.m. funeral there. Interment is to be private.

Donations may be sent to Monkey's House, a dog hospice, 820 N. Delsea Dr., Clayton, N.J. 08312.

Condolences may be offered to the family at terranovafuneralhome.com.

wnaedele@phillynews.com

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