Every Store Has a Story: H. Kimura Store–Oshima and Kimura Families Still Operate Historic Kainaliu General Stores
By Hadley Catalano
If you walked into Kimura Store as a child it was almost guaranteed that Mrs. Irene Kimura would give you a piece of candy. While that reason alone might be good enough for any seven-year-old to visit the historic fabric store, located on Mamalahoa Highway in the center of Kainaliu town, it most likely wasn’t the reason the child’s mother or grandmother was dropping in.
The destination shop was, and still is, considered among island sewers, quilters and seamstresses one of the best fabric and sewing accessories shops on Hawai‘i Island. With more than 10,000 bolts of fabric, ranging from bright floral Hawaiian and Japanese prints, to all shades and hues of solid colored cloth, Kimura’s has a diverse and continuously updated assortment of yardage. And they get plenty of advice to go with it.
“Women travel from Puna and Hilo to come buy fabric here,” explains Winnie Kimura, daughter of the late Irene and Hisashi Kimura, who were the second-generation owners of the family business. “Including (former) Gov. John Waihe‘e’s mother. She came here to pick out the fabric for her inauguration dress.”
However, when Hisashi Kimura’s parents originally opened the store in 1926, it was a general store, selling essential items such as detergent, produce, alarm clocks, cookware and hardware. The supplies were indispensible to the local, rural community and in 1940, when Hisashi and Irene took over the Mamalahoa Highway storefront, Irene’s dressmaking practices and talent quickly found their way into the business.
“The depression times were tough. My mother would make dresses seven days a week till 10 p.m.,” says Winnie, who currently owns and operates the business with her brother Brian. “She would make dresses for the Aloha Theatre shows, the Filipino and Japanese shows.”
While the Kimura matriarch worked late into the evening, local residents would buy grocery items from their store: scratch, foodstuff and rice as Winnie recalls—and leave it at the store and come pick it up after the show.
It was during the 1950s that the Kimuras started selling fabrics, and rebuilt and expanded their business. The fabric stock took over the shop and soon Kimura’s had 95 percent of its inventory in fabrics. Irene would take Winnie on buying trips twice a year to purchase new fabric from wholesalers in California (a tradition that later would include Brian’s wife).
“Mom looked for bargains, but good quality bargains,” Winnie recalls of the mother-daughter excursions. “Still today we want to save money for the customers too, especially with the economy, but we want economy goods that will last.”
In addition to offering affordably priced fabrics, Mrs. Kimura (the name by which she was known by all in the community) also focused on giving customers a wide variety of material selections and accessories choices (a practice that is still employed). Kimura’s carries everything from burlap to silk to cotton and a vast assortment of sewing staples such as threads, ribbons, buttons, zippers and netting.
While the Kimuras taught their children trade secrets, they also stressed the importance of obtaining a quality education.
“Our mother was self-educated. She taught herself how to make dresses and she designed her own patterns,” Brian Kimura said of their mother, a well-known, talented seamstress in the community, who passed away in 2002, followed closely by her husband in 2003.
After Winnie, her younger brother, Brian, and oldest brother, Glenn, received degrees in education, business management and law respectively, the three returned home to Hawai‘i Island and eventually began to help their parents in the business. Winnie operates the day-to-day retail store, Brian does the bookkeeping for the shop and Glenn, who lives in Hilo, takes care of the legal work.
“We are grateful to our parents for sending us all to school and we hope we can continue the successful business they started,” Brian says, noting that Kimura’s will be receiving its Kona Historical Society Heritage Store plaque soon.
Over the years, by word-of-mouth, rave reviews and another store expansion, Kimura’s was acknowledged in a handful of publications, including American Patchwork and Quilting magazine and Stories of Aloha, a book compiling the short profile pieces on Hawai’i small businesses from Aloha Airlines’ Spirit of Aloha magazine.
Packed from the front door to the walls with rows of fabric options and supplies, a scattering of hardware items and a display case of Japanese cosmetics, the old store has the charm of yesteryear. With frequent patronage of local clientele, returning tourists who make a point of visiting Kimura’s when on the island, and new customers who will soon make Kimura’s a routine stop are a testament to the institution of the historic fabric shop.
The unmatched familial atmosphere—whether it’s Brian’s children helping out around the store, one of the part-time ladies ordering a specific fabric for a customer or Winnie handing out pieces of candy to children as they leave—has proven that H. Kimura Store is an exemplary representation of the true nature of a family business.
Oshima Store
Ernest Teshima approaches the back display case at Oshima Store, the landmark Kainaliu family store, and walks behind the fish counter. Senator Daniel Inouye is having dinner at his family’s well-known restaurant that evening and Ernest was sent by his centenarian mother, Mrs. Mary Teshima, to pick up Oshima’s fresh menpachi. Owner Susumu Oshima bags the order and listens as his long-time patron chats—a salty-sea aroma wafting up from the metal tray holding the locally-caught, whole red reef fish. As the two elderly men lean against the small glass counter, talking story, dressed in similar, faded aloha shirts, long slacks and sneakers, they exemplify the daily welcoming interactions that have taken place between the Oshima family and their store customers for the past 86 years.
Registered as one of the Kona Historical Society Heritage Stores, the family business, a clientele-tailored “mom and pop” store is a Kona mauka gathering place, a pharmacy and a convenient general store run by three generations of Oshima family members.
The seed of the Oshima entrepreneurial spirit was planted by the family’s patriarch, Kanesaburo Oshima, upon immigrating to Hawai’i Island in 1907. Making his way as a hired hand at a Hāmākua plantation, Susumu Oshima explained that his father was then cook’s helper at the W.H. Bruno estate and a barber for a Korean officer, before relocating to Kealakekua to open his own barbershop.
With the close of the plantations and their roadside stables in the early 1920s, Oshima and his new wife moved to Kainaliu and opened a tailor shop out of one of the vacant stable buildings on what was then known as Mamalahoa Trail. In 1926 the family moved to an adjacent street-front shop and opened up a sundry goods store at Oshima’s present day location.
“My mother and all the children helped in the store,” remembers the 85-year-old director of Oshima Bros. Inc, who grew up in the family business alongside his 11 brothers and sisters. “We sold soda pop and pastries before we gradually kept increasing our merchandise.”
While business grew, the war wrecked havoc on the family. In 1941 Oshima senior was forced into an internment camp in Oklahoma for his correspondence work with the Japanese consulate in Honolulu.
“My father worried about his wife and children back home,” recalls Oshima, who was 14 at the time. “I helped pick coffee and took care of my father’s obligations.”
Tragedy further befell the family as Kanesaburo was shot and killed as he tried to escape the camp. In the face of calamity, nevertheless, the Oshima family prevailed and Susumu enlisted in the military. Working to meet their customers’ orders during wartime shortages, the entire family labored in-house to keep the business successful. The mauka Kona area was the commercial center of Kona during the ‘40s and ‘50s, prior to the tourist boom that came later. With the help of Hilo wholesalers who provided the store with their spare food supplies, Mrs. Oshima continued to lead the business, pay back loans and keep her family together.
“When I returned from the war I continued to help in the store,” says Susumu, whose wife, Setsuyo, also used to work regularly in the store. “But in August of 1948 we had a fire at the store at 10:30 at night. It was right before the shipping strike and we had stocked up on merchandise. We didn’t have insurance and the fire burned everything.”
Again the Oshimas’ reputation for hard work and strong business ethics helped the large family gain a loan from the bank and supplies from island wholesalers, allowing the family to rebuild their general store from scratch.
Over the years Oshima Store has expanded, opening up a pharmacy in 1955, after Oshima’s younger brother became a pharmacist. Today niece Corinne Oshima-Koseda (daughter of Susumu’s second eldest brother) runs the pharmacy and is the general manager, alongside her uncle.
“Now I’m working for her. She said she’d be the manager provided I stick around,” Oshima laughs, saying his nieces, including Kathleen Abe who operates Oshima Surf, an adjacent clothing and accessories store (a second location is now open in Kailua-Kona), will take over the business one day.
The Oshimas’ strong, small-industry leadership, sponsorships and donations to local organizations, and community-focused business plan have been distinctive company practices that have helped the store earn numerous small business accolades, including 2010 Retail Business of the Year-Hawai’i and recently, U.S. Small Business Administration’s 2012 Family-Owned Small Business of the Year for the State of Hawai’i.
Letters of recommendation poured in with support for the honor, from senators to Hawai‘i Island Mayor Billy Kenoi. They spoke highly of Oshima’s commitment to local business, dedication and humble family pride, along with the store’s characteristically well-known feature: their unending and extremely diverse supply of goods. An old-fashioned general store survives in the modern world.
“Our old advertising pens said ‘A little bit of everything,’ and that’s what we have,” says Assistant Manager Alfred Morimoto, noting that Disney’s Aulani Resort on O’ahu modeled their historic general store after Oshima’s. “People can find anything here.”
Indeed they can. Be it just one of an item or several makes and styles, everyone from tourists who’ve read about Mr. Oshima in travel guides to locals who have been stopping into the store since childhood, can locate anything, including (but definitely not limited to) fishing supplies, rubber boats, tents, canned goods, musubi makers, paper and notebooks, pocket knives, hats and gloves, beauty products, first aid supplies, canned goods, fresh produce, coolers, cold drinks, liquor and candies—making the family store a historical and integral part of the Kona community and truly a convenient spot. ❖
Contact writer Hadley Catalano: hadleycatalano@gmail.com
Store contacts:
Oshima Store: 808.322.3844
H. Kimura Store: 808.322.3771
