Frank Masao Okamura was born in Hiroshima on May 5, 1911, and moved to California at the age of 13 to join his father, who had gone there in search of work. He lived with a British family while attending high school and returned to Japan briefly to marry. He and his wife, Toshimi Nishikubo, then returned to America to start a small gardening business in the Los Angeles area. Okamura lost his business in 1942 when he, his wife, and their two young daughters were sent to the Manzanar Relocation Camp in the California desert. The family lived there for three years and eight months until the end of the war.

Okamura was on the staff of the Brooklyn Botanic Garden from 1947 to 1981, first as a gardener in charge of the Hill and Pond Japanese Garden, then as a bonsai specialist responsible for caring for the Garden’s large and important collection of bonsai, the miniature, potted trees grown using techniques developed in Japan. Okamura also taught the Botanical Garden’s bonsai classes and lectured nationwide, instructing thousands of students in the art of bonsai. He has written articles on the subject for the World Book Encyclopedia and the Encyclopedia of Japan, an English-language work published by the Japanese company Kodansha.

The Okamuras, who lived in a brownstone they owned on the Upper West Side, rented rooms to visitors from Japan. One of their tenants was Dr. Daisetz T. Suzuki, the scholar and writer who brought Zen Buddhism to the West. He lived there for four years, beginning in 1958, while he gave his famous lectures at Columbia University.

Reference: New York Times