South Lake Tahoe resident celebrates her 99th birthday

In the year 1921, New York Yankee Babe Ruth hit his 138th homerun as the team made their first World Series appearance, Coco Chanel introduces "Chanel No. 5". Boeing obtains orders for aircraft and abandons furniture-making, Albert Einstein receives the Nobel Prize in Physics, Woodrow Wilson (until March 4) and Warren G. Harding (from March 4) were president, and technology made advancements towards what would be the first television. Charles Bronson, Nancy Reagan, and John Glenn were born.

Then, on Friday, October 7, Teruyo Kimura Kunibe was delivered by a mid-wife in the town of Perkins which is now inside the City of Sacramento.

Teruyo, known as Terry by her friends, is celebrating her 99th birthday in South Lake Tahoe today, her hometown for the past 65 years. She'll be surrounded by friends and family , having a special lobster dinner as they watch the vice-presidential debate together.

The spry woman stands 4'8" and is packed full of energy not commonly found in someone 20 years her junior. Until COVID hit, Terry went to the Senior Center twice a week for exercise class and lunch for twenty years. Now she takes daily neighborhood walks around the State Street area near her home.

Terry came from a family of six. Her older sister just celebrated her 101st birthday, her brother passed away at the age of 90 and her younger sister died at the age of 95. Longevity runs in the family.

Being Japanese, the family was sent to the Tule Lake Internment Camp in WWII, just after Terry had graduated from community college. Tule Lake was the largest of the ten War Relocation Authority (WRA) camps. From there, they separated the citizens and she and her sister went to the camp at Topaz, Utah. As the war drew to a close the government started to release the encamped Japanese-Americans, but they didn't send them back to the West Coast which was still an exclusion zone. Terry ended up in Cleveland where she stayed for 18 months before heading back home to Sacramento.

She and her brother had saved some money and helped their parents purchase a four-plex for $5,500.

It was in Sacramento where Terry met Tsutomu "Ben" after being introduced by a family friend from Wakayama Prefecture, their parents' native area. They married on June 15, 1947. Ben passed in 2011 after 63 years of marriage.

The couple were the first Asian family to live on the South Shore when they came to the area in 1952 seasonally to run the produce section at Lampson’s Market (12 years before it became South Lake Tahoe). They moved to Tahoe permanently in 1957, living first in a 600-square-foot cabin before moving up to a larger one that was 700-square feet, home to the couple and their four children.

Those children, who are now parents and grandparents, are Russell, Phyllis, Susanne and Charlene. They are graduated from South Tahoe High with Charlene the last graduate at the original STHS which is now the middle school in 1966, and Susanne in the first graduating class at the school's current campus.

Terry helped Ben run his produce business both at Lampson's and later at the Bijou Center. In 1974 they built the home she still lives in after the Lampsons sold their property, which made way to factory stores and now The Crossing at Tahoe Valley.

After retirement they traveled often to Alaska by van, and later camper, to visit son Russell and his kids.

The birthday girl now enjoys her days reading newspapers, doing the crossword puzzle (in pen), getting out on her walks and watching the news. She's getting ready to cast her ballot for the November 3rd election. She voted for Franklin Delano Roosevelt and has been a democrat her whole life. Her favorite presidents? Roosevelt and John F. Kennedy.

When asked the secret to living such a full life at 99, Terry said, "I'm just lucky I guess. I didn't expect to live this long." She does credit two of her favorite things, exercise and hot tea. She is also a member of Soroptimist International of Tahoe Sierra.

A fun fact, there are three women within a one-mile radius near Tahoe Keys Boulevard that turn 99 this year.

Besides her four children Terry has ten grandchild and five great-grandchildren.

If you see her out walking today, wish her a happy 99th!