Sumiko Kobayashi was the eldest daughter of Susumo Kobayashi, the gardener for the Fabyan Japanese Garden. The Kobyashis lived in a house on the property until 1939, just after Nelle Fabyan died. The family moved to California but "In less than two years," the Kane County Chronicle reported in 1991, "Sumiko Kobayashi, who was an American citizen born in Florida, had moved from the lush Riverside (sic) Estate to a concentration camp with barbed wire and armed guards." After the war, the family settled in the Philadelphia area.
Sumiko was in Geneva in 1991, in part, to attend Geneva High School's 50th-year reunion. While in Geneva, she stopped by the Fabyan Villa Museum to donate two books her family had received from the Fabyan Estate. The books, The Scenarios and Customs of Japan, were personally inscribed gifts to Nelle Fabyan in 1907 by Japanese General Baron Kuroki. Colonel Fabyan assisted in the negotiations for the end of the Russo-Japanese War in 1905 and the Empire of Japan maintained a relationship with the Fabyans for the rest of their lives.
One of these books is on display in Nelle Fabyan's bedroom in the Fabyan Villa Museum.
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SOURCES: Victoria Pierce, "Woman Recalls Life on Fabyan Estate," Kane County Chronicle, June 5, 1991; "General's Gift Returns Home," Geneva Republican, June 20, 1991; "Friends of Fabyan," Restoration Advocate 10, no. 3 (September 1991): 5.