HOST: This week on Peace Talks Radio, a stolen symbol of peace, a new statue in Seattle. And the remarkable story of Floyd Schmoe, who first built Peace Park
“Peace to me, really is that children can have a childhood. I mean that, of course, it's more than that and it's different things to different people, but for me it's just that children should be able to have a childhood free of war. That no bomb should be dropped on them”(Saya Moriyasu)
“That was one of Floyd's favorite things to say was, we cannot survive, even if nuclear war never actually happens, we cannot survive the preparations for it because it distracts us from what we need to do to support each other.” (Jonathon Betz-Zall)
HOST:The history of Peace Park and the role of art in peacemaking, coming up now on Peace Talks Radio.
This is Peace Talks Radio, the radio series and podcast on peacemaking and nonviolent conflict resolution. Whether it's the search for Inner Peace, harmony in our closest relationships or understanding in our workplaces, schools, neighborhoods, and beyond, we explore it here on Peace Talks Radio. From personal moments to global movements we consider what it takes to build a more peaceful world.
In the summer of 2024, someone crept into Peace Park in Seattle. They apparently took a saw to the legs of a statue there, made of bronze, which presumably they could melt and sell when they were done. All that was left were a pair of small feet wearing a pair of sandals.
The statue was of a girl named Sadako Sasaki who at the age of 12 died from cancer caused by radiation exposure. She was from Hiroshima, Japan. The radiation was from the bomb. The United States dropped on her city in August of 1945. She became famous for folding more than 1000 paper cranes while in the hospital, hoping that if she made enough, she could be granted a wish she desperately wanted to live.
Her story became famous around the world. Meanwhile, in the United States, a Quaker and peace activist named Dr. Floyd Schmoe fought against the incarceration of Japanese Americans during World War ii. Many years later in 1988, Dr. Schmoe won the Hiroshima Peace Prize for his activism. He used the prize money to clear a small lot near the University of Washington and create Peace Park where the statue of Sadako Sasaki was installed in 1990.
She stood there, a human shaped question mark asking what peace really means, what it costs, who it's for, until July, 2024, when the statue disappeared. Now Seattle Artist Saya Moriyasu, has been commissioned to build a new statue correspondent Anna Van Dine. Spent an afternoon with Saya learning about Sadako, the park and the role art plays in peacemaking.
Anna Van Dine: For someone who maybe has never been to Seattle, what kind of a neighborhood is this? Can you situate us?
Saya Moriyasu: So we're near the University of Washington and we're next to University Street Bridge, which is a small bridge for cars to go over. And we're on the Peace Park, which is a small strip of land next to a road.
So that's why you hear lots of cars and there's a bike path and a path. Running alongside it. So there's people biking and you can hear in the distance. You can hear probably I five. Lake Union is not far away, but we can't see it. There's a line of trees that lock it as well as buildings.
Anna: I mean, it just feels like the kind of place that you could go by without ever noticing it.
It seems unassuming.
Saya: This park is completely unassuming. It is a very small strip of land that formally a lot of. People going to the University of Washington would park their cars on or maybe leave an abandoned car or piles of garbage, but now it has grass and trees that line it. And it is a beautiful, very small park.
In the middle of this very small park, there are two very small feet made of bronze. This is all that's left of the statue of Sadako Sasaki. The young girl who died of cancer caused by radiation exposure from the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima in 1945. Sadako and her story have become a call for peace around the world.
For somebody who can't see these Bronze feet, what do they look like? Can you conjure up an image?
Saya: The feet are made outta bronze and bronze weathers, so they're have a slightly bluish tinge. The feet are wearing Japanese, uh, shoes, Zoe. And tabby socks, which are split at the toes. So that's all that remains.
And on either side of her are, are two big lavender bushes that are blooming and there's bumblebees on them. And surrounding her feet are artificial flowers that somebody has brought to her and some paper cranes.
Anna: What do you feel standing here and looking at? The feet of this statue that's been taken away.
Saya: I feel a, a, a deep sadness that she's gone and that she was, that she was taken away. But I'm also very thankful that her feet are still here as something, some part of the, the original.
Anna: Saya Moriyasu thinks a lot about these feet. She's been commissioned to create a new sculpture to replace the statue of Sadako, which was stolen in 2024.
It's a complex, challenging assignment. It's full of history, memory, harm, and hope. Saya and I sat down in her studio to talk about Sadako and how she's approaching this work.
Anna: Who was Sadako, could you tell her story? Sure. Sadako Sasaki was two years old in Hiroshima when the atomic bomb hit the city. She didn't live that far from the epicenter, and she was with her mother and her grandmother, and her, I believe her older brother, and they were in their house.
It was a beautiful blue sky day. And then the bomb hit the mushroom cloud and they made it away. And while, I think while that was happening, or maybe when they arrived at a safer distance, the black rain hit them. So the black rain was the fallout from the atomic bomb. So it rained down on all their bodies.
They didn't, nobody knew what an atomic bomb was. It was the first atomic bomb used on a major city, and their family had, you know, had to struggle for years after that. But Sadako was healthy. Her brother was healthy. Her mom was healthy. They were living and trying to recover as much as they could. They were very poor because of the bomb.
And they, you know, lost their house and lost everything. Uh. Uh, but 10 years later she got sick. She had been a runner. She'd been in school very, her name means happy child, and then she started to get sick. Her neck swelled up and they didn't wanna think it was what it was. Well, what it was was that Soko, who was then 12, had leukemia, um, which was caused by exposure to radiation from the bomb a decade before.
And this brings us to the most well-known part of her story, which is that while she was in the hospital, she folded origami cranes. There's a Japanese tradition where if you fold a thousand paper cranes, you can make a wish, and Soko wanted to wish for her health to come back. But it didn't work. And after several months in the hospital, she died, which started kind of a movement.
Anna: Saya, can you talk about what happened after Sadako's death when she passed away?
Saya: Sadako's classmates were really devastated because, you know, like it's 10 years since the war. You think the war is over. We've made it, like life's moving on, they're thinking about their futures, and then Soko just gets taken down like that.
So they, uh, with a, a teacher, they said, well, we gotta do something. The children in Hiroshima have suffered so much. We wanna make a statue of Soko and. They got together, there was a gonna be a principal's conference in Hiroshima, which meant that there was like 2000 principals from all over Japan. So they made flyers and they, they stood and passed them out for a couple of days and it just started to build from that.
So I think it was 1955 is when she passed away. And 1958, I believe was when they. Erected the Children's Memorial at the Hiroshima Peace Park. A memorial for all the children who have died as a result of war and to wish for peace. So that's a very popular spot. At the Hiroshima Peace Park. There is a statue of Sadako.
She's holding a huge crane. And then there's a couple other figures on the side that are kind of distressed looking and falling, and there's a bell underneath that. And then surrounding that are glass cases where people fold a thousand cranes for wishing for peace. So Sadako and her origami cranes have become synonymous with the call for peace and the end of innocent suffering, and her story has become famous around the world.
It's been retold as a children's book, which is often read in classrooms, and then students learn to fold paper cranes themselves.
Anna: Saya, why do you think Sadako's story has resonated with. People around the world and with Americans, why has she become such a symbol?
Saya: I think that it's just a way for people to care, to care about one child's story, because sometimes there's so much pain and suffering out there that you can't see the big picture.
But if you just think of one child and one child's story, it can help you make. Room your life for peace.
Anna: So why was there a statue of her here in Seattle too?
Saya: So, in probably the late eighties, uh, Quaker named Floyd, Moe wanted, he had done a lot of activism and peace work throughout his life, and he decided that Seattle should have a peace park and there was a strip of land across the street.
From the university Quakers that was run cars parked on it, it was run down full of garbage. So he worked slowly and tirelessly with a whole community of people to create Seattle's Peace Park. And as part of that Peace Park, Floyd Schmoe wanted to have Aico sculpture.
Anna: This is Peace Talks Radio. I'm speaking with artist Saya Moriyasu about the new sculpture of Sadako Sasaki she's working on for Seattle's Peace Park.
The original statue was installed in 1990, and then in 2024 it disappeared. No one knows exactly why, but presumably it was stolen so the bronze could be melted and sold, and only Sadako's feet were left. After the theft, several Seattle organizations came together to work to replace the statue and restore the park, and Sayah has been commissioned to create a new statue of Sadako and design the surrounding space.
Saya, what was your reaction when you found out that the statue from Peace Park had been stolen?
Saya: There has been a lot of bronze stolen in Seattle and surrounding areas, so it wasn't so surprising, but it was kind of gut wrenching that that was the one that got stolen this time. But at first the community didn't know, you know, why she was cut down.
And it did really hit the community, this Japanese American community and the Quaker community, like a hate crime. So it was kind of different than other things getting stolen for metal. It just, you know, is she coming back? How do we look for her? Where's she gone? And then at a certain point, I think just people kind of concluded that.
It was for the medal and she was gone.
Anna: Well, so now you have been commissioned to design a new statue. How are you approaching that? What are you working on?
Saya: So they asked several artists to do proposals. I approached this, uh, commission first in the proposal stage by really researching, by thinking about where that.
The Peace Park location, how the Chesheeahud goes through there, which was, uh, the Duwamish cheap. That was the last person to kind of live a digs lifestyle along Lake Union. So Peace Park is in that trail. So I was. Thinking about that. And then also, uh, I had seen the documentary here, houses for Hiroshima about Floyd Schmoe, who was a university friends member, a Quaker who commissioned the sculpture.
So I really did a deep dive and did a lot of research about him and looked in the archives. And then I knew Sadako’s story, but I read more books and things online to learn more about her. So I was sort of, that was my process to sort of learning and saturating myself with things and then kind of weaving a visual out of that.
Anna: So could you describe what this statue will look like, what it will be made of and what it means?
Saya: The, I will make a statue of Sadako that will be made out of aluminum because aluminum can't be stolen. And the original proposal call said that they wanted to have KO's bronze feet somewhere in the park. So the original bronze, she was the school girl.
Wearing a, a Japanese school girl's outfit, but for some reason she had traditional Japanese tabby socks and gta the shoes. So it seemed a little incongruous to me because I don't think she would've worn those shoes with that school girl outfit. And I'm not really sure what the choice was, but I thought.
I wanted to have a feeling of protection and love for that tradition and her feet. And so I decided to sculpt her with a kimono. And also the kimono would, uh, uh, enable me to have a story with the kimono design to kind of weave the stories. Of Chesheeahud and Floyd Schmoe and Sadako together and, and peace and kind of having a visual about that.
And then a above her will be three oversized ginkgo leaves structure that will, uh, just kind of further have that feeling of protection or surrounding and being cared for. And the ginkgo leaves are a symbol of. Of remembering. And in Japan, there's a particular ginkgo tree that survived the atomic bomb and is very beloved and well taken care of.
So kind of weaving those symbols together and then they'll, uh, they'll between the ginkgo stems will be seats so people can, they'll be four kind of oversized seats that people can sit on because people like to fold paper cranes as a remembrance of. Sadako and, uh, wish for peace and leave them at the site.
So it gives them a place to kind of be more. And then there'll be a sign explaining the three stories that I'm weaving together. So we have, we will, we'll have symbolized the story of Sadako, the guy who made the park in the first place, and the indigenous history of the area.
Anna: That's like a, a very strong braid of stories that you're bringing together.
Saya: It just made sense to include those three stories because of the site and because talking about peace and the different forms of peace, how it comes in different forms. So for Chesheeahud, it's the peace of being able to live your indigenous lifestyle, free of colonialism and settlers taking over your land. And for Floyd Schmoe, it was constantly walking the path of peace by building houses in Hiroshima, helping the Japanese Americans.
Before and after they were sent to concentration camps in the US and Sadako Sasaki, who was a young girl who piece to her would've just been living a normal life with ever, without ever having an atomic bomb dropped on her city.
Anna: Is there anything of your own life or background or experience that you are noticing or intentionally finding yourself infusing into this work?
Saya: Well, my family was in Hiroshima and Hiroshima prefecture when the atomic bomb hit. So my father was a young child when that happened. He was not in the epicenter of the bomb, but he was about 11 miles away. So he went into the next day because his family. Had trucks and they went into the city to look for relatives and friends and their maid that had gone in the day before when, when the bomb hit.
And so he saw things that a small child should never have seen. So what I'm working on this, it's it coming from my history as well. And my mother and my, my grandmother and grandfather moved from Japan at, when they retired. And my grandmother did practice Japanese tea ceremony and she started teaching my mother, and together they started Waka Tea School in Portland, Oregon, which still is exists and Waka literally means peace club.
So I feel like there's a lot in my history that it has, uh, made me the artist to do this. That makes me. Want to do this and also not want to do this because it's difficult.
Anna: How do you deal with the difficult parts?
Saya: Oh, how do I deal with the difficult parts? I cry. I read more.
I just try to think how maybe this sculpture can help. Hm. People keep peace in their mind and abolish atomic bombs.
Anna: Why is art important for peace?
Saya:Well, art gives your. I something to land on, to take a moment longer. And since, for, in this piece in particular, since there'll be details on her kimono and a sign and kind of some symbolism that you might need to think about a little, like, you know, are those big ginkgo leaves? Why is it a Chesheeahud on her kimono and things like that.
And who, who was Floyd Schmoe? Because we all have our phones and we can Google things that it'll hopefully initiate a little deeper look into some of these lives and to think why, what is peace to them?
Anna: Um, as the person who's making this, what is peace to you?
Saya: Well, peace to me, really is that children can have a childhood.
I mean that, of course it's more than that and it's different things to different people, but for me it's just that children should be able to have a childhood free of war that no bomb should be dropped on them.
Anna: When you say all of that, I think about how our present moment is not entirely peaceful in some places it's very far from peaceful.
Um. What will this Statue and Peace Park in its new iteration, what will that mean in the present moment and how might that be different from what it meant when it was first? Put up or what it might have meant in 1945?
Saya: Well, I know that when Floyd Schmoe in 1990, when the piece was presented, the Sadako sculpture was presented.
He stated an article that the Berlin Wall had come down and he, he said it. I think he was like remarking that it was a. Generally, like some great strides had had come and things had moved on, and I think in 1958 or nine when the Sadako sculpture went up in Japan, I know that from reading that her classmates were truly worried about a third bomb being dropped on Japan and the fact that those children had to live with that thought.
So peace to them was like, please don't do this again to us. And then today it's just unbelievably, the never again, now is upon us. Do you feel like comparing where we are today with. When the atomic bomb was dropped on Japan, that the world is a more peaceful place that we've come somewhere. It doesn't feel like, it feels like a very, very, very difficult time with kind of a rise of fascism, and it's a very, very, very hard moment in world history.
Again, it's something that. Yeah, we didn't think that we'd have in our lifetimes when I was growing up. We hope not. We were worried, uh, definitely about the buildup of nuclear arms, but now it's, even though there's still atomic bombs out there and the US has not signed the agreement to do away with them, but they're not remembering the real cost.
Anna: What can artists do in this moment, like not just you, but in general, what is the ability of an artist to encourage peace.
Saya: Well, I'm not gonna tell anybody what they need to do as artists. I mean, I think that being an artist is a form of resistance to begin with. So I will say if you're making art, it doesn't have to be pol political.
You being doing something outside of the norm is a assertive resistance and hopefully. Working towards peace on some other level, but I, I do see that many artists use their tremendous talents to visually tell stories that help promote peace or educate people and hopefully help others to see something that they're not seeing, and to maybe activate something or talk to people about things that are going on.
Anna: And that seems to be what you're doing with this sculpture of Sadako weaving together these stories of peace and conflict past and present with her kimono. The ginkgo leaves the bronze feet from the original. It's not a simple work of art at all, but I guess you know, neither is the work of peacemaking.
Um. What do you want someone who comes to visit this new sculpture to think and to feel and to experience?
Saya: I would hope that when people come to the park that because it will be more of a landing spot than something that you just bike or drive or walk by, that they might take a moment to read the sign because part of this is, is educational, so there will be a sign.
Because prior to this, Sadako had no sign, a very small sign, and it didn't explain who she was. So people would often, when. People were there doing, putting up cranes or doing something, people would go, why is this girl here? So I would hope that it becomes more of a tool for people to consider peace in their lives and what it means and what it looks like, and to feel more comfortable to gather around her and enjoy the space when.
Anna: When Will it be real? When will people be able to visit it in Peace Park in Seattle?
Saya: Well, our goal, and when I say our, it's, you know, like everything that I've been talking about, it's not one person. It's many people coming together to make something happen or, you know, if, if we are successful getting through the bureaucracy and getting permission, and we also have to afford this sculpture.
So this year on a August 6th is the 80th anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima, and so we're shooting for August 6th, 2026 to have this sculpture in place and hopefully it will happen.
Anna: Well, Saya Moriyasu, thank you so much for joining us on Peace Talks Radio. Thank you so much. For s, this new sculpture she's creating of Sadako Sasaki won't just be a little girl in a kimono.
She will be hundreds of thousands of children, and the park won't just be a small piece of land in Seattle. It will be hundreds of thousands of places around the world. Both peaceful and not the group working to renew Peace Park is as of Fall 2025, fundraising to complete the project and ensure the space can be taken care of for years to come.
Until then, Sadako Bronze Feet still stand in Peace Park surrounded by lavender bushes. Buzzing bees and paper cranes.
Host: That was correspondent Anna VanDyne with Seattle Artist Saya Moriyasu, talking about the stolen statue of Sadako Sasaki, her enduring legacy and the role of art in peacemaking. You can find images of Sadako and Saya's work in progress on our website, peace Talks radio.com in part two of our program coming up.
We will talk with one of the leaders of the group working to restore Peace Park and hear the fascinating life story of the Quaker Peace activist who started it. You can find both parts of this program at our website, peace Talks radio.com. You can also find all of the programs in our series dating back to 2003.
There's much more detail on our shows there, as well as a donate button where you can become a peace leader by supporting the nonprofit work we're doing here@peacetalksradio.com. Hope you'll join us for more in a moment. Stay tuned for correspondent Anna Van Dine. I'm Jessica Ticktin. Thanks for listening to and for supporting Peace Talks Radio.
Back in a moment.
Part 2
HOST: You are listening to Peace Talks Radio, the radio series and podcast on peacemaking and nonviolent conflict resolution. I'm Jessica Ticktin today with correspondent Anna Van Dine. On part one of this episode, we heard from Seattle artist Saya Moriyasu, who has been commissioned to build a new statue of Sadako Sasaki, the young Hiroshima girl who became a global symbol of peace after folding 1000 paper cranes before her death after the original statue was stolen and destroyed in 2024.
The statue was originally commissioned by peace activist Dr. Floyd Schmoe, who used his Hiroshima Peace Prize to establish the park in 1990. In the second half of this two part episode, we're gonna learn more about Floyd Schmoe. He was the Quaker peace activist who created Peace Park in Seattle. Floyd lived a long and interesting life, born on a farm in Kansas at the turn of the 20th century.
He became well known as a naturalist and pacifist in the Pacific Northwest. After World War ii, he traveled to Hiroshima to help rebuild the city, which the United States had devastated with the atomic bomb. Here's Floyd remembering that work in an interview recorded by the Densho Archive recorded when he was 102 years old.
“I was shocked at the bomb. I thought it was a, an atrocity, even in warfare, mass destruction, 30,000 children. But I thought. I if I went back to Hiroshima and said, so sorry. So sorry. They would likely have and rightly, bombed me as we would, uh, to a Japanese apologizing for Pearl Harbor, but I thought if I went and was my own money and my own hands and built a house for a surviving family. They would understand.”
HOST: This is exactly what Floyd Schmoe did. He raised money and traveled to Hiroshima to build houses. Later in his life, he was recognized for this work. One of those awards came with a small cash prize, which he used to create Peace Park in Seattle. In the middle of the park was a bronze statue of Sadako Sasaki, a young Japanese girl who died of cancer caused by exposure to radiation from the bomb.
The statue was stolen in 2024, and now a group of Seattle residents is working to have a new sculpture installed. Correspondent Anna Van Dine sat down with Jonathan Betz-Zall, one of the leaders of the project, to restore Peace Park, who personally knew Floyd Schmoe to learn more about the man who started it.
Anna: So how did you know Floyd Schmoe?
Jonathon Betz-Zall: We moved to Seattle first in the mid 1970s, so I could go to grad school here, and I was already involved with Quaker, so we started attending the Quaker meetings and one of the most active figures was an elderly man named Floyd Schmoe. Uh, he had helped found the meeting in the early 1940s.
And he was, he was just very well known around the meeting. He was what you might call a prophet figure who would state, you know, big kind of moral positions and, and try to inspire other people to follow him as opposed to what we call a committee. Friends, friends as the, as our internal name for ourselves as Quakers.
But he was not one of them. He was always kind of a profit figure. Uh, then we were away for. Quite a while came back in the mid 1980s. Floyd was a lot older then, of course this was, you know, 10 years later and had kind of pulled back from a lot of the things that he was doing. But he was already at work on, uh, what's now called Peace Park.
So here he was kind of fluttering around the meeting and I was having been a peace activist my entire adult life, was very attracted to this and came out and supported him. And we did, we did a number of activities in support of the Peace Park project.
Anna: Yeah. So you were kind of Quaker colleagues in, in peace work here in Seattle?
Jonathon: Yes. Very good. Yeah. Nice summary.
Anna: Um, but he had lived quite a long life before that. I, I believe he was born in rural Kansas and Right. 1895 to a Quaker farming family. Mm-hmm. And, and being a Quaker seems like a really important part of his identity. Yes. What would that have meant for him? And for those who are unfamiliar with the faith, what does it look like?
Jonathon: In theory and in practice, Quakers were originally a Protestant Christian group, uh, but who developed a very strong reputation as pacifists because we also have a very strong, uh, tendency to stand up for ourselves and speak our truth. You know, other, other groups were hiding from the King of England who want to repress everybody but his own church.
But the Quaker stood up and eventually won religious freedom for everybody. We are not warriors in the sense of carrying swords around. Instead, we are, we call ourselves followers of the truth. We look for the truth in every situation, and we listen. To discern it because we know we don't have the whole thing.
That's kind of the way Quakers operate. You know, we try to look past the differences that we've been told to believe about each other and really look for the all the things that we have in common that we can collaborate on. So Floyd would've come outta that tradition very strongly.
Anna: I wanna hone in on this aspect of peacefulness because it seems notable that being raised as a Quaker, that this would be something that was like part of how he was talked to.
Mm-hmm. And how he was taught to talk to other people. Right. What do you think the impact of having that messaging might be for somebody growing up to hear that this message of, of peace integrated with faith this way.
Jonathon: So this may sound like it's coming from out left field, but I'll try to bring it in real quick.
Uh, we have gatherings of Quakers from all around the northwest, and when we do that, the teenagers come because this is the place where they can really feel like them themselves. They're Quaker kids, they're in some town in Idaho, and they feel like they're the only ones that feel the way they do. They come together with more Quaker teenagers, maybe from the urban areas like here, and they, you know, they feel a lot better supported.
So we put a big emphasis on having those regional gatherings. This is the kind of thing that we can do for each other to overcome that sense of isolation. That people will feel if they are, they're the ones who are trying to live to these values. Everybody else around them is shouting the war slogans, you know, or saying, or even at football games, you know how excited people feel.
I remember how excited I got as a teenager about my football team, but Quakers are taught, you know, to, to feel those feelings and get past them quick. Because when we really relate to people, you know, we want everybody to be. At least civil with each other, if not really close friends. And I mean, that actually, I, I always helped personally myself in high school when I, I played a really hard tennis match against somebody from a, a different high school that we all looked down upon, but he was such a sweet guy.
We got to be really good friends, at least, you know, until we graduated and left. But that, that's, that's kind of the way Quakers operate. You know, we try to look past the differences that we've been told to believe about each other and really look for the, all the things that we have in common that we can collaborate on.
And having that kind of attitude that's, that's what parents can do to help support their children, is just kind of point out when somebody's really upset, what's really happening here? What do you think that person is feeling? How does that fit together with you? Can you see, you know, how they might be feeling that way?
You do that a few times with, especially with a younger child, and things look really different, and you do not have to in any way, be a Quaker to do this. You know, anybody can do this. That's part of the Quaker message too. Incidentally, you don't have to be a Quaker to be a good person or to go to heaven, whatever.
Okay. As long as you, you know, pay attention, do the right thing.
Anna: So Floyd would've been raised like this right around the turn of the century. Mm-hmm. In rural Kansas. Mm-hmm. And then, you know, grew up and went on to study forestry, but while he was in the middle of his studies, the first world war began and he joined the war effort as a conscientious objector through a Quaker group, organized to do relief work in Europe as an alternative to military service.
Right. What can you tell me about the significance of that?
Jonathon: Uh, the idea at that time was that if you were not joining the military, you were a traitor. So this was a breakthrough that Quakers achieved at that time was to get that approved. You know, so he did not have to be either dragged into, into the army or thrown into prison because that did happen to a lot of people for draft dodging, right?
That's what they called it. But these are really people standing up for their values and it was a big victory at the time. Today. Conscientious objection is no big deal. It was, it was a big deal in 1917. Hmm.
Anna: Well, so he, so he made this choice to be peaceful during World War I, which seems really significant.
Mm-hmm. Um, and, and sort of like sets the trajectory. For his life. He returned from World War I got married and moved to the Seattle area where he and his wife Ruth, spent about six years living at Mount Rainier National Park. Um, while Floyd worked as an educator and a mountain guide, and later on he and Ruth and their then four children spent summers in the San Juan Island so he could do research in marine biology.
And so you share his Quaker faith and have studied environmental science. I wonder, do you see these ideas and experiences coalescing?
Jonathon: So, environmental science runs on very few principles, really, but one of them is the interconnection of all life. And that ties directly into piece work and pacifism because if you're interconnected on as a living, being with these people who are also pointing guns at you as you're pointing guns at them, that makes your soldierly task a little difficult.
Because you have this consciousness up there that you, you know, this is really not the right thing to be doing. And if you go deep enough, you know, this, this becomes more than just a political thought or even just an ethical thought, but something that really comes out of your deepest being. I can see, 'cause I was not raised a Quaker as Floyd was, but I can see his, his farm background, his early training, and then his experiences actually doing relief work as all supporting.
That sense of the unity of life.
Anna: And when you talk about the unity of life, do you mean how the world is one big ecosystem and when you mess with one thing, you're messing with everything is, is that what you're talking about?
Jonathon: That's a nice concise way to put it. And in fact we won't survive without it.
That was one of Floyd's favorite things to say was, we cannot survive, even if nuclear war never actually happens, we cannot survive the preparations for it because it distracts us from what we need to do to support each other. I don't know whether he actually said that clearly in public, but he sure said it to us at a friends' meeting.
You know, it's not, this is a matter of life and death. You know, it's, it's not something for these nice pacifists over here to, to do on the side and we pat 'em on the head and say, nice people. You know it one, you know, one way or another. Eventually, this life and death
Anna: Floyd's work studying marine biology in the San Juan Islands contributed to his master's thesis, which he completed right before World War II began.
And it was around this time that he began to be known as a peace activist. What did he do around the time of the Second World War and why was it so important to him?
Jonathon: So this, this I this way that we try to bring together all our ideas and live them out fully. The term we use for that is integrity. Some people call it simple life, but really it's about having everything fit together really well.
At the very beginning of World War ii, many, some people may remember that a wave of hysteria hit the west coast of the US That resulted in people of Japanese ancestry, including many people who were citizens, were all rounded up just on the basis of, of their ethnicity and shoved into concentration camps.
The, at the time, they were called war relocation centers, but it was a lot more than relocation. They were guarded with bayonets and machine guns and barbed wire, and people actually were shot for trying to leave. Well, Floyd saw this and said, this is not the way we treat each other, no matter how afraid people are.
So he organized relief efforts. Uh, people sent care packages. They went and visited. They sent teachers. Some of 'em actually went and lived there. Just to help people. That's how strong they felt about it. Floyd himself did not do that. He stayed in Seattle and did quite a bit of relief work, and a lot of people still remember that.
Okay. But that was the basis on which he did it is we are one. Humanity is one. You know, we don't treat each other this way no matter how afraid we feel.
Anna: And after the war, he continued to help Japanese Americans who faced racism and hostility in many different forms as they returned to their homes.
Right. Um, and their neighborhoods. But he was also focused on Japan itself, and particularly on the devastation caused by the atomic bombs that were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. And he was so moved by this situation where these people had. Lost everything. He began a project to help build houses in Hiroshima where he raised funds and traveled to Japan to help rebuild the city.
What can you tell us about that project and that work?
Jonathon: Okay, so my understanding was that the Japanese actually wanted to build the houses themselves. They had their own methods. They had very skilled carpenters, but. You know, Floyd wasn't, was enough of a deal maker to be able to reach an agreement with them on, on exactly who would do what.
So he brought materials, he did bring volunteers to help, but the Japanese actually directed the construction. So in some ways it was kind of a symbolic move. You know, there was no way he could bring enough to completely rebuild the city, but he, I think they did something like six or seven houses and they spread their efforts to Nagasaki and other places as well that, because Tokyo was also devastated by fire bombs, not by nuclear weapons.
So it was, you know, similarly mass destruction. And there, there, there was actually a recent documentary on where the Japanese network, NHK tried to find people who had known Floyd Schmoe and they followed their staffers as they went around trying to find people. They were so excited when they found people who could talk about him and, and, and they talked about the impact of, of people there on having this American, from the people who had just done all this damage come to try to repair some of it.
And they were all so grateful and so. So very happy about ha to have known him.
Anna: Well, I, I read that the mission of this project building these houses was to build understanding by building houses so that there may be peace. Right. How was this American traveling to Japan to do this work? How was that an act of peacemaking?
Jonathon: So this was right after this huge war where there were lots of very hostile feelings still flying, even though the Americans were feeling so triumphant. There was still lots and lots of racism as, as you mentioned earlier, against uh, Asian Americans. Not so much against Nazi incidentally, but definitely against Asian Americans.
So, so, you know, directly standing up saying, we're for peace and not for saying, you know, the Japanese had any justification for what they did. You know, he, there was never a word of that. Okay. It's all about standing up for peace and unity.
Anna: This is Peace Talks Radio, and we're talking with Jonathan Bets Za about the life and work of Quaker Peace activist Floyd Schmoe.
So Floyd did a great deal of additional piece work and activism throughout his life. In many different contexts, though, he is perhaps best known for building these houses in Japan, and, and that incidentally is what led indirectly to the founding of Peace Park here in Seattle. Yeah. Can you tell us the story of how that came to be?
Jonathon: Sometime in the early 1980s, there was a Japanese Peace Foundation that gave Floyd a monetary prize for all of this work that he had done, and he did not need the money, particularly, he's always lived fairly simply. So he said, you know, what good thing can I do with this to help promote the cause of peace, especially in people's memories.
So he thought this idea of the Peace Park right across the street from our friends meeting site in Seattle, there's a bridge that goes across a main body of water and one, one of the approaches to that bridge there was kind of a. He'd call it waste ground ground that no one was doing anything with. It was covered with weeds.
Loaded up with trash. Floyd said this is gonna be a park, and on this park there's gonna be a statue of Sadako Sasaki, who was a little girl who was in Hiroshima at the age of two when the bomb fell. And she survived that didn't, was not immediately injured at the time, but 10 years later died of leukemia, which they're pretty certain was caused by the bomb.
Uh, she had previously been an athlete. Basically, and then suddenly collapsed. But as she was dying, she started folding paper cranes. They were called suru in Japanese. And these are a symbol of long life and and good fortune. So when you fold paper cranes, if you can fold a thousand of 'em, you're supposed to get your wish.
So she folded all these paper cranes, and as she was doing it, she said, I will write peace on your wings and you will fly all over the world. So Floyd, with his whole idea of promoting peace through generations, just lashed outta that idea and said, this is gonna be the focus of the park. So he, and actually I was part of this group, uh, started cleaning up the park, removed all his trash, I forget how many dumpster loads it was, cleaned it, raked it and set it up to have a statue there.
Meanwhile, uh, Floyd organized a few supporters to raise money and raised enough so that a local statue who mostly donated his time, could create this statue. And have it all set up to go there. Eventually the park was ready and in 1990 we dedicated it. It was a wonderful ceremony. Lots of people came. Um, Japanese American community showed up and a lot of us Quakers did as well.
Um, and Floyd used that park. To continue campaigning for peace, every time a a, a distinguished visitor would come through town, he would have them go to Peace Park. So he took personal charge of maintaining this park over the years until he couldn't do it anymore. He got to be like 90 years old, no longer had the physical stamina, and then, you know, eventually he died. And then really nobody took care. But then just this last year, it was cut off at the feet and stolen, and there's a whole other story around how that's being restored,
Anna: Right, Yeah. We, we heard in the first half of the program about how the statue in 2024 had been cut off at the feet, disappeared, and that now there's an artist who your group is working with, Saya Moriyasu, who's, who's creating a brand new sculpture.
Could you talk a bit about. That project and with the new iteration for Peace Park. Might be.
Jonathon: So I have to tell you a little something about Floyd first. Uh, he was not an organization person, and actually he had trouble working with other people on big projects like this. It was, you know, not everybody can do everything.
You know, he was a great prophet. He totally was, and we still look up to him for that. But to really make something happen, you also have to have these allies behind you. He did create a, a committee of allies to help create the park in the first place. The, all those volunteers that came and helped out, but once they had it all set up, he thought we're done and he disbanded the committee.
So there was nobody left to actually maintain the park. Uh, so we're not gonna make that mistake this time. So now, now the committee's big effort is not just to renew the park, but to have kind of ongoing maintenance of it. So that's probably, that's probably the biggest single difference, is that we are going to, to make sure this thing lasts for a good while.
I mean, it did last 35 years, you know, but we we're looking for at least another 35.
Anna: So you're in the fundraising stages of this project now. Have a very solid game plan for how this is going to unfold with the goal of this new sculpture being unveiled in August of 2026.
Jonathon: Correct.
Anna: What will this new statue of Sadako Sasaki mean?
Jonathon: I see it as really a continuation of the vision we've had all along in creating a park. Floyd wanted people in the future to un to know and understand and support this idea of peace really at a deep level. Okay, so that was the original idea. Uh, unfortunately, he did not make provisions for educating people beyond the visual of Sadako up there.
There is no website, there is no plaque. Yeah, there's no, there's no other source of information except the Parks department's website, which does talk about, so coin what it means. But if you just come upon it, there was nothing to tell you what this was about. You know, it's, um, there's a statue with all these strings of paper cranes hung from it.
Okay? But the new statute will have actually have explanation. Okay. First of all, those strings of paper cranes that I mentioned are very important symbol of the Japanese. But if you have a, a monument like this, you want to be able to hang your strings of paper cranes onto it, showing that you are part of this peace process.
You not only appreciate it, you not only recognize that you know the story, but you're also upholding the story yourself in your own life. And you do this by making your own strings of paper cranes hanging them on the statue. The original statue was kind of reaching up toward the sky with one arm and the other behind.
This allowed people to hang strings of paper cranes on that arm, but that resulted in the statue being covered, so you couldn't even see it. With all these paper cranes, the new statue will have its arms outstretched to either side. That will allow twice as many paper cranes to be strong on it, and they will not obscure the statute.
At the same time of the kimono dress that Sadako will be wearing will have lots of little images on it of aspects of Floyd's life, and those images will be explained in a panel of text that will be behind the statue. So when people come up to this statue, they will have an opportunity to learn the situation and we hope, reflect, think what it might mean to them, think how they too could get involved in the peace processes of our time.
Anna: What are the peace processes of our time? Why is sending this message now important?
Jonathon: A few weeks ago on Facebook, I saw a post by a group called Hands Across the Border. A group of of Canadian people who live right across the border from Washington State had organized basically a handshaking event at the border crossing in Blaine.
This is actually another peace monument. Incidentally, it's a big arch there. It's four piece, no Sadako, but it's, it's a whole separate thing. And so a bunch of Americans saw this and said, we're gonna go join them. Yeah, so they've done that I think five or six times now. We went up a, a few weeks ago and had a nice time chatting with people, and this kind of thing is what I see as piece at a deeper level than, you know, merely resolving specific conflicts or merely refraining from using various kinds of weapons.
This is a, a live demonstration of creating peace where an artificial border divides is, has been made to divide us. And this is just one example, lots of others too. When you have people truly from their heart doing social service projects of any kind across any kind of cultural border, whether it's national borders, ethnic borders, spoken or unspoken, you know, transcending these borders is really what it's all about. And that is. We, we want Sadako to be part of that. All the information that we're presenting is emphasizing that point.
Just how we really all are one.
Anna: You mentioned that you got to know Floyd yourself in his later years. What was he like? We talked so much about legacy, but what was he actually like as a person?
Jonathon: Yeah, he was, he was definitely driven by, by peace. Um, at, I would say a pretty abstract level. He saw the, um, the, the super major deep issues of, of he, he'd say mankind, I would say humankind, you know, and that, that's, that's really what I want people to remember about him.
He was a great person. You know, with a few flaws here and there, clay feet. All right. But he was a great person and that's that along with his little clay feet are what we need to remember
Anna: Well and purely by coincidence, we are having this conversation on August 6th, 2025, which is the 80th anniversary of the dropping of the atomic bomb, and hopefully one year before this new statue will be unveiled and ready to be taken in by the world that that passes by.
And I wonder, what do you think Floyd would want people to remember on this day? Today and going forward into, into perpetuity.
Jonathon: Yeah. Um, okay. To really center down, to discern what unites humanity and, and act in, in whatever way opens to you. To bring that about, to express that, to show others, to encourage them to join. That I think is what Floyd would want. So yeah.
Anna: Jonathan Betz-Zall, thank you so much for joining us on Peace Talks Radio. Thank you.
Jonathon: This has been a most inspiring opportunity.
HOST: That was correspondent Anna Van Dine, speaking with Jonathan Betz-Zall. You can find more information about the Sadako Renewal project@peacetalksradio.com. The first part of today's program took us into the story of Seattle artist Saya Moriyasu, who's working to create a new statue of Sadako Sasaki in Seattle's Peace Park.
Sadako's story of paper cranes and hope in the shadow of Hiroshima reminds us that art can carry memory across generations and can invite us into dialogue about peace in our own communities. That's what Peace Talks Radio has tried to do for more than 20 years. Bring forward voices of everyday peace builders, artists, educators, and organizers, and share their stories on public and community radio stations across the country.
Every one of our partners helps us carry conversations about nonviolent conflict resolution to listeners in their hometowns, making our reach both local and national. Of course, you can always listen online, read transcripts, or share programs with friends@peacetalksradio.com. Sign up for a podcast and newsletter as well and make a donation to keep this program going into the future.
Support comes from listeners like you. Also, the Albuquerque Community Foundation Ties Fund. Support two from KUNM at the University of New Mexico. Nola Daves Moses is our executive director, Allie Adelman, composed and performs our theme music. Special thanks to Densho Archive for Anna Van Dine, co-founders Paul Ingles and Suzanne Kryder, and the rest of our team.
I'm Jessica Ticktin. Thanks so much for listening to and for supporting Peace Talks Radio.
