George Kanemoto and his late brother Jimmie were two of Longmont’s best-known citizens: farmers, businessmen and philanthropists.
George Kanemoto died Oct. 28 at his Longmont home. He was 90.
His brother died almost three years ago.
The two were inseparable in their businesses and family life: they married sisters, and their children all helped with the family enterprises.
But family members said they were totally opposite in one way: Jimmie Kanemoto was the outgoing brother; George Kanemoto was the quiet one.
“Dad was always behind the scenes,” said George Kanemoto’s daughter Karen Wood of Longmont. “He’d rather have been on a tractor than joining something.”
The brothers opened Freshway Market in Longmont and later owned Kane Manufacturing and Park Manor Apartments. Kane sold irrigation- equipment products.
They later developed family land into Southmoor Park, a housing area.
The family was always grateful to the city of Longmont and the state because they didn’t face discrimination during World War II, Wood said. No one in the family was shipped off to internment camps as many Japanese were, because of the support they received from Gov. Ralph Carr.
The Kanemotos gave hundreds of acres to the city — land that was used for an elementary school, fire station school offices, St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church, a park and a Buddhist temple. In the park, they built a five-story steel, aluminum and cedar pagoda called the Tower of Compassion.
The brothers “were quiet philanthropists who never needed to take credit for all they did in this community,” said former Mayor Leona Stoecker. “What a legacy they have left.”
Kanemoto loved to eat sweets “but never lost his youthful figure,” said his son Ed Kanemoto, who gave the eulogy for his father.
In fact, he could put away three pieces of pie at a sitting, his daughter said. The Kanemotos and their employees always took breaks at 9:30 a.m. and 3:30 p.m. and that meant sweets, Ed Kanemoto said.
George Kiyoshi Kanemoto was born in Longmont on July 27, 1919, and had to drop out of school in his sophomore year because his father, Goroku Kanemoto, a sugar beet farmer, died in a car accident.
Last year, Longmont High School gave him an honorary high school diploma.
He began work on the farm. He and his brother bought land and continued expanding their holdings over 30 years.
In 1948, George Kanemoto married Jane Miyasaki of Lafayette. Her sister, Chiyo Miyasaki, had married Jimmie Kanemoto.
In addition to his son and daughter, George Kanemoto is survived by his wife; another son, Dale Kanemoto, and another daughter, Gail Hogsett, all of Longmont; eight grandchildren; and one great-grandchild.
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