Bellefontaine Nursery

This is one of those times when I find a picture of something I like and I figure I'll post it, no big deal. Then I find out it's got a story behind it. In this case, 72 years of Pasadena history.

One of my favorite buildings in Pasadena houses the Bellefontaine Nursery at 838 S. Fair Oaks. I can't help but notice the building because it's so much older (circa 1900?) than the new, beige, high-gloss Huntington Hospital complex that stands poised to trample it without so much as a glance over its nondescript shoulder.

Let's hope that doesn't happen. I don't know what lived here prior to 1939, but since then it's been home to the Bellefontaine Nursery, founded and owned by successive generations of the Uchida family since the beginning.

Current partner Alan J. Uchida has written an absorbing history of his family's business, complete with black & white photos. He glosses over the bizarre World War II period during which Japanese Americans, including the Uchidas, were sent to internment camps: "Fortunately, with the help of watchful friends, the Uchida family was able to retain their nursery which was closed from 1942 to 1945." What a gentle, generous way to say what happened to his family.

How must it have felt, that day in 1945, to have shaken the hand of your loyal (Caucasian?) friend and accepted your keys from him or her, then to open the door of the nursery? Did the outer door stick, just a bit? Did the screen door whisper a familiar screech? The sun would have streamed in the east windows, giving even the dust a welcoming gleam. The air would have been stuffy but in it you would sense a hint of your own past presence--your future, too--still there, if barely, needing nothing more than everything you could give.