Time & Again: Tashio Fujioka’s truck comes home

The surprising story of how Tash’s truck made it home nearly 70 years later.

Tashio Fujioka, or “Tash,” as he was known by his friends, joined the newly formed Five-Ton Strawberry Club in 1954 because he produced an average of six tons of strawberries per acre on his 4.5 acres of Vashon strawberry fields.

Due to that successful harvest, in December that year, Fujioka ordered a new Dodge 1-ton stake bed truck to help his family work the farm and deliver their berries to market. That new green truck, which cost $2,214.50, arrived the next month at the beginning of 1955, immortalized in pictures his family took of him proudly standing beside it.

Nearly 70 years later, through many owners and many miles, Tash’s truck returned to Vashon and to his former farm — now named Forest Garden Farm and owned and worked by Lisa Hasselman and Chris Hedgpeth.

The odyssey of Tash’s truck’s return echoes Tashio and the Fujioka Family’s own story of hard work, perseverance, displacement and restoration.

Tashio’s father Sadaji Fujioka emigrated from Japan in 1900, and by 1910 was working on a Vashon fruit farm. His bride, Tsune, whom he had known in Japan, arrived from Tacoma in 1911, and their first child, Tashio, was born a year later. Seven more Fujioka children would be born on the island.

In the early 1930s, the family leased the land they would eventually purchase. They worked hard and successfully farmed loganberries, strawberries and fruit trees at multiple properties on the island. The children attended Vashon schools and weekend “Japanese School” to learn language and cultural traditions, and the family became an important part of the flourishing Japanese American island community.

But the successful lives the Fujiokas built on Vashon were brutally disrupted in 1942 when the family and the rest of Vashon’s Japanese American community was exiled and imprisoned during the World War II-era mass relocation of Japanese Americans. The Fujiokas were finally released in 1945 and returned to the island.

Tashio, his parents and sibling Susie returned to Vashon, and in 1951 purchased the land they had previously farmed — which had been used as a birthing center during the war.

Tashio, who became head of the family, continued to farm into the early 1970s, when he went to work for the island’s U.S. Post Office. He continued to maintain the farm and planted trees to keep the property up. Family and friends would visit regularly to harvest the traditional Japanese vegetable, Fuki, which Tsune planted near the pond Tashio and Reed Fitzpatrick had created after Tashio had purchased the farm.

Tashio used his Dodge truck regularly on the farm and meticulously maintained it in top condition. When his health declined, he moved to Bainbridge Island in 2006 to live near his sisters Susie and Mary. He died at 97 in 2010 and was buried in the Vashon Island Cemetery.

The 1954 Dodge truck was sold after he died, and the farm was rented to a series of tenants who were much less conscientious about maintaining the farm than Tashio had been. In 2014, Mary and Suzie sold the farm to Lisa Hasselman and Chris Hedgpeth, who renamed it Forest Garden Farm because of the beautiful forest Tashio had planted. They began to restore it into a working farm with a stand and a presence at the Saturday Market.

The truck was briefly owned by two others before Culdesac, Idaho resident Bob Morton purchased it in 2013, naming it Green Bean and describing it this way: “The original paint still shines nicely, showing just a bit of patina in a couple places. The interior is still all original: door panels, seat upholstery, headliner, dash and paint all nicely preserved. The original drive train has never been out or rebuilt, though some gaskets, seals, hoses, etc. have been replaced for reliability.”

Morton installed new tires, brakes, and gears, and added a right-hand brake, taillight, in-cab rearview mirror and seat belts. He kept the wooden bed and side rails, which were “100% original and in near perfect condition.” His only cosmetic change was painting the wheels to same green shade as the rest of the truck.

The Vashon Heritage Museum and Friends of Mukai invited Bob to showcase the truck at the 2017 Vashon Strawberry Festival parades. “Driving with the [descendants of the Nishiyori Family] riding in the back was a moment of pure respect,” Morton said. “I am grateful to have been given the stewardship of Green Bean.”

After Bob brought the truck to Vashon, according to his wife, Theresa, he was delighted — he “never stopped talking about the Strawberry Festival Parade afterwards.”

Bob Morton died suddenly of a heart attack in 2023, but before his death he relished the knowledge that Green Bean would be coming home, Theresa said — as island historian Bruce Haulman had reached out to arrange to purchase Green Bean and return it to the island when the time came.

“His stewardship of her was one of his greatest joys in life,” Theresa Morton said, “one that I am delighted to preserve. Bob honored the Fujiokas more than I could ever express. When he got to see her ancestral home, well, his heart grew three sizes that day.”

The unanswered question was who would purchase the Fujioka truck and where would the truck “live” once it returned to the Island.

Lisa Hasselman and Chris Hedgpeth wanted to return the truck to its Vashon home and own it as part of Forest Garden Farm, but as a developing farm, a “new” truck was a bit of a stretch.

So the Fujioka family got involved — when they heard about the possibility of bringing Tashio’s truck back to the farm on Vashon, they offered to buy it for Lisa and Chris. The Vashon Heritage Museum created an account allowing the Fujiokas to donate to the purchase of the truck and to build a maintenance fund to ensure the truck would be maintained in its original condition.

Benno Bonkowski, known for driving his red 1953 Diamond T classic truck around the Island and in Strawberry Festival parades, offered to arrange and cover the cost to transport the truck from Idaho to Vashon. On Thursday, November 7 last year, the truck finally arrived back on Vashon.

As Theresa wrote: “Nothing could make me happier than to arrange for Green Bean to go home to her community, her family, her people, where she belongs. For her to represent her caring community gives me great joy. She speaks of the values of the past and the hopes of the future as she returns home.”

Lisa and Chris, along with island historian Holly Taylor, are currently applying for King County historic landmark status for the Fujioka family farm. You can share memories of the Fujioka family or their farm to lisa.hasselman@gmail.com.

Bruce Haulman is an island Historian. Lisa Hasselman is an island farmer. Terry Donnelly is an island photographer.

Tashio Fujioka and his then-new 1954 Dodge truck. (1955 Fujioka family photo)

Tashio Fujioka and his then-new 1954 Dodge truck. (1955 Fujioka family photo)