Marie Nishimura

May Marie Nishimura, lover of art, architecture, food, wine, and exploring the world around her, passed away Jan. 27 at her home in Lafayette, Calif. She celebrated her 88th birthday several months earlier over dim sum with family in San Francisco.

Marie’s mourners range the gamut from restaurateurs and wait staff to gallery owners, jewelers, chocolatiers and others who experienced her largesse over the years.

Born in 1933 in Alameda, Calif., to Mrs. Shizu and Dr. Walter Iriki, Marie and her family were interned in U.S. Japanese internment camps during World War II, first in Puyallup, Wash., and then in Minidoka, Idaho. After the war, the family lived in Boulder, Colo., and Ogden, Utah. Upon Marie’s graduation in 1951 from Ogden High School, her family returned to California, settling in El Cerrito.

Soon after, while attending the University of California at Berkeley, Marie met and married Dr. Jonathan S. Nishimura in 1955.

The couple moved to Boston, where they began their family, and in 1968 moved to San Antonio, Texas. Marie spent the 1970s as a homemaker and avocational potter, taking classes at the McNay Art Museum in San Antonio, and moving quickly into utilitarian ceramic lines and commissioned sculpture. She showed in prominent local galleries and won numerous awards from the San Antonio Art League and other shows. Marie subsequently returned to school, earned her bachelor’s in architecture from the University of Texas at San Antonio, and became a registered interior designer.

She worked for years in the San Antonio architectural offices of 3DM, Stubblefield Mogas, and SA Partnership as a designer, draftsman, model builder, and renderer. One of her proudest achievements was designing and building a beautiful addition to her family’s home.

She and Jonathan, married for 53 years, relished traveling with their children and grandchildren, memorably to France, Hawaii, Japan, Vancouver, the Pacific Northwest and throughout California. After Jonathan passed away in 2008, Marie in 2013 moved back to California’s East Bay, and re-acclimated herself to the fine food. By the time she passed away, it had been years since she asserted she could find no better seafood in the Bay Area than at her Red Lobster in San Antonio.

Besides Jonathan and her parents, she was preceded in death by brother Leland Iriki of Lafayette. Survivors include her daughter Wendy Kiniris and husband Vasilios of Oakland, Calif.; son Scott Nishimura and wife Julie of Fort Worth, Texas; grandchildren Nick Kiniris of Portland, Ore., Evia Kiniris of Bend, Ore., and Seiler Nishimura of San Antonio, Texas; brother in-law Joseph Nishimura and sister-in-law Joyce Nishimura of Palo Alto, Calif.; sister-in-law Marjorie Iriki of Rock Springs, Wyo.; and numerous nieces and nephews.

Marie will be buried with her husband Jonathan in a private service at Sunset View Cemetery in El Cerrito. In lieu of flowers or koden, the family suggests contributions to J-Sei of Emeryville (j-sei.org); or the McNay Art Museum (mcnayart.org), San Antonio, Texas.

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