Daisy Matsuda always was in the thick of things.
She was at home the night in 1984 when her next-door neighbor, controversial talk show host Alan Berg, was assassinated. The shooter and accomplices hid in her yard.
She was working at the New China Cafe when a gunman fired and a bullet grazed the side of her head.
And for decades she served food and drinks to some of Denver’s powerful.
Matsuda died Sept. 13, at an area care facility. She was 89. A memorial is planned for 4 p.m. today at Denver Buddhist Temple, 1947 Lawrence St.
Matsuda lived for a time at a Japanese internment camp near Jerome, Ark., during World War II.
She was a longtime waitress at the New China Cafe, which for years was at East Colfax Avenue and Clarkson Street.
Being near city and state offices, the restaurant attracted the likes of former Gov. John Love, former Mayor Bill McNichols and his brother, former Gov. Steve McNichols, author James Michener, police chiefs, entertainers and newspaper editors, said her son Craig Matsuda of Los Angeles.
She told her family some of the stories — who drank too much, who was nice or rude — “but I’m not sure if those stories are fair game,” said her daughter, Wanda Matsuda Brown of Evergreen.
The night Berg was shot in his driveway, Matsuda called her son, who was night city editor at The Denver Post, to “get over here,” said her son. “So The Post was there before the cops” and got the story in the following morning’s paper, he said.
Daisy Haruye Nakashima was born Jan. 31, 1921, in Sacramento, Calif., and helped provide for her family by working on farms in northern California.
When she was freed from internment, she moved to Denver, where Japanese were welcomed. She met Kenji Matsuda, who owned Ken’s Shoe Repair. They were married in June 1949 in an arranged marriage. He died in 1989.
After working at the New China, she worked for United Airlines catering and later for a deli and at the White Spot cafe. She finally retired at age 75, her children said.
Ken and Daisy Matsuda worked long hours, six days a week.
“Her high energy lasted until her final hours,” said her daughter.
Matsuda was determined that her children would go beyond her schooling, which was less than high school. All three had to go to college and play at least one musical instrument.
In addition to her son and daughter, she is survived by another son, Wayne Matsuda of Denver, two grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.
Virginia Culver: 303-954-1223 or vculver@denverpost.com
Other Deaths
Leonard Skinner, 77, the basketball coach and gym teacher who inspired the name of the Southern rock band Lynyrd Skynyrd, died Monday in Jacksonville, Fla. He had Alz heimer’s disease.
Skinner was working at Robert E. Lee High School in Jacksonville in the late 1960s when he sent a group of students to the principal’s office because their hair was too long. Those students later formed a band, using a variation of Skinner’s name for their own.
Irving Ravetch, 89, a two- time Academy Award-nominated screenwriter — for “Hud” and “Norma Rae,” written with his wife and collaborator, Harriet Frank Jr. — died Sunday in Los Angeles.
Beginning with the 1958 film “The Long, Hot Summer,” Ravetch and Frank wrote the scripts for more than a dozen films, including “The Sound and the Fury,” “Hombre,” “The Reivers,” “The Cowboys,” “Conrack,” “Murphy’s Romance” and “Stanley & Iris.” The Associated Press
