Lasting Memories

Nobutaka Ike
June 6, 1916-Dec. 15, 2005
Stanford, California

Nobutaka Ike, longtime Stanford professor of Japanese and East Asian politics, died Dec. 15 following a brief illness. He was 89.

Born June 6, 1916, in Seattle, Wash., he earned his bachelor's degree from the University of Washington in 1940. In the fall of that year, he and his future wife, Tai Inui, began teaching at the university but were fired after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.

A few months later, they and their families were relocated to an internment camp, where he served as assistant interpreter for a few months until the U.S. Army realized it needed his language skills. In 1942, he persuaded camp officials to release Inui and they married shortly thereafter. They spent the rest of the war in Boulder, Colo. where he helped teach a crash course in Japanese to navy soldiers. After the war, he earned his doctorate at Johns Hopkins University and, in 1949, came to Stanford as a research associate. In 1958, he became an associate professor of political science, specializing in Japanese and East Asian politics. He served as department chair during the mid-1960s and as chair of the department's graduate admissions committee.

He is survived by his wife of 63 years, Tai Ike of Jacksonville, Fla.; his daughter, Linda Kelso of Jacksonville, Fla.; his son, Brian Ike of Darien, Conn.; and two grandchildren. In lieu of flowers, donations may be sent to the Henry S. Tatsumi Scholarship Fund for excellence in the study of Japanese, Department of Asian Languages and Literature, University of Washington, Box 353521, 225 Gowen Hall, Seattle, WA 98195-3521.