By Emily Anderson, JANM Curator
In March 1944, as war raged in Europe and the Pacific, a young woman named Faith Gladstone living in Brooklyn came across an article that would transform her life. Appearing in LIFE magazine’s March 20th issue, the article, titled “Tule Lake Segregation Center,” introduced Faith to the plight of Japanese Americans incarcerated at Tule Lake, the recently designated segregation center at the California-Oregon border.
Idealistic and restless for a purposeful life, Faith had been searching for a way to be useful during the war. Her initial interest in signing up for the Women’s Army Corps had met with swift opposition from her parents—military service was far too dangerous for them to agree—and nearly done with her degree at Brooklyn College, the article stirred something new in her. She was especially moved by a photograph of a kindergarten class; her budding interest in education no doubt drew her to the sweet but bewildered faces of these young children who could be her own students. Years later, she wrote,
Firstly, I was appalled that this injustice had happened in my glorious America, the land of freedom and justice! Concerned as we were with events of World War II, very few Americans at that time took note of this event, this violation of our national principles and values.
In fact, the children featured in LIFE magazine’s article did become her students. In a remarkable coincidence—or perhaps as fate would have it—the United States Department of the Interior sent a letter asking for teachers willing to travel to and work at this isolated location only a month later. Faith jumped at the opportunity. Her parents were deeply concerned about their twenty-year-old daughter going so far from home, and to such a remote place. Faith promptly reached out to the director of Tule Lake who allayed her parents’ fears. She was determined to go. She later explained,
I immediately saw this as my opportunity to go out into the real world; to place myself in a challenging new situation, and even, possibly, to communicate to these children that there are Caucasians who cared for them and wanted to help them!
In addition to being motivated by her outrage at the injustices Japanese Americans were suffering, she had two goals for her job:
One, to help these uprooted children to feel loved, important and capable, and secondly, for them to find pleasure and success in learning to read, write and begin to do basic arithmetic.
When she arrived, she was assigned to teach first grade: her students were those very same children whose photograph she had seen months earlier.
In March 2024, Faith’s children David and Ellen Marshall reached out to the Museum to fulfill one of their late mother’s last wishes: to donate the papers and photos that documented the transformative months she spent as a first-grade teacher in Tule Lake. In addition to her correspondence with camp administrators as she prepared to relocate, and memos and pamphlets distributed to staff, this collection featured her personal copy of the photo printed in LIFE magazine with the names of the students written onto it in her hand.
For sixty years, she lovingly preserved her collection of mementos from her time at Tule Lake, including the magazine photo, on which the names of the children are penned in Faith’s own hand. She considered donating the collection to JANM a few years ago, but could not bear to part with it. Instead, she left her children instructions to donate the materials after she had passed away.
These materials that document Faith’s remarkable decision to be a friend and helper to these children in Tule Lake when so many had turned their back on Japanese Americans is now part of the Museum’s permanent collection thanks to David and Ellen’s fulfillment of their mother’s wishes. In addition to donating their mother’s treasured collection, they have also very generously made a financial contribution that will honor her legacy and place the Faith Marshall Family among the supporters and allies who help preserve and share the history of this dark chapter in America’s past, ensuring its lessons are never forgotten.
David and Ellen visited the Museum in September to deliver their mother’s collection in person and to honor her students by stamping their names in the Ireichō.
Coming on the eightieth anniversary of the publication of the LIFE magazine article and Faith’s time as a teacher in Tule Lake, the timing of this generous gift honors the memory of Faith Gladstone Marshall. It also sparks a new question: where are her students now? Faith taught two separate classes of twenty students each, and based on a list she created, the names of her students are listed below. Do you know one of her students? Were you one of her students? We would love to hear from you!
Jane Asano
Sadako Ekusa
Teruo Fukuwa
Takashi Fukushima
Lucy Ikeda
Bobby Inouye
Henry Kishaba
Osami Maruyama
Reiko Morimoto
Betty Miyama
Percy Morimoto
Jean Nagasawa
Ben Nakagawa
Eiko Nakata
Yukiko Nakayama
Ruby Nishimoto
Hisaye Noguchi
Joann Ogata
Ruth Ogata
Keiichi Sakita
Masu Sasajima
June Shimada
Ronald Shimatsu
Sumie Shimomi
Michie Suekawa
Marie Tabata
David Takage
Junior Takehari
Tadashi Tamura
Harumi Taneguchi
Chester Tanehana
James Tatsukawa
Donald Yamasaki
Dick Yano
Hisao Yasukochi
Ken Yokota
Kimiko Yoshida
Yoshie Yuki
All quotations taken from Faith Gladstone Marshall’s unpublished memoir.
Featured photograph: Karen Kano and siblings Ellen and David Marshall in front of the Ireichō. Photo by Edward Escarsega.
