Myrtle Machiko Goldfinger, loving wife of Arthur Goldfinger for 46 years and widow for four, joined him in eternal rest on February 18, 2011. She was 94 years old. Born in Tokyo, Japan in 1917, Myrtle came to the United States as an infant with her family in 1918. She grew up in Hollywood, California where her father, Imahei Takaoka, was a founding minister of the Hollywood Japanese Independent Church. Raised in a lively and musical household with her five siblings, Myrtle developed a life-long love for singing and dance. In 1942, President Franklin D. Roosevelt sent Myrtle along with 110,000 other people of Japanese descent to War Relocation Camps by Executive Order 9066. Myrtle was sent to Manzanar in the California desert, where she passed her time by teaching ballet to children. Her brothers were able to leave camp during the war by joining the 442nd Infantry Regiment, an Asian-American unit that became the most highly decorated unit in the history of the U.S. armed forces. After the war, Myrtle too served her country by joining the Federal Civil Service, which stationed her on Tachikawa Airfield in Tokyo, Japan to work as a translator for U.S. military personnel. Here, she met and married Arthur Goldfinger a serviceman from Springfield, Massachusetts. Upon Arthur’s retirement from the Air Force, the couple moved to Mobile, Alabama where Arthur attended college and worked in secondary education and Myrtle worked as a home-maker and as a clerical assistant in a law office. She was a dedicated member of the Bear Fork Road Seventh-Day Adventist Church, where she was particularly active in music ministry. After the shock of Hurricane Katrina in 2005, Myrtle and Arthur left the Gulf Coast and moved to Indianapolis, IN to live with their son, Johnny Goldfinger, a
nd his family. Myrtle is survived by her son Johnny, daughter Robin Chambers, four grandchildren, and three great-grandchildren.