Dave Matsuda, Quality Cleaners owner, dead at 67

Moments in a life well led
    The crack of that shotgun.
    The growl of the motor on that 1949 Panhead. The one featured in the August 1973 issue of Choppers magazine.
    The squealing tires of that GTO, peeling out at the local airport.
    The exertion landing the big fish at Flaming Gorge or hauling the prize bobcat home after a successful trapping excursion.
    The meticulous care, attention to every detail, day in and day out labor of love at that tiny dry cleaners in Price. The one his parents built.
    It’s small moments and large that combine to make up a man’s life.
    The energy they express rolling out like waves into the ether, so many pebbles tossed in a still pond.
    Dave Matsuda’s kind-hearted, humble spirit no doubt will reverberate for a long time in these parts, fusing together these moments that made him who he was, a person greatly missed today by the people he touched, his friends and family, customers and community.
    Dave died Feb. 17.  He was 67 years old.
    By all accounts he succumbed to the flu in his Helper home.
    His dog, an 11-year-old German shorthair whom Dave affectionately called Meathead, died the very next day, Dave’s loss too great for his beloved pup’s heart to bear.
    Quality Cleaners, the little store he ran and a Price mainstay since 1960, will shutter in a couple of weeks. Its closing will leave a void, turn a chapter in Carbon County history.
    Dave’s humility would have pro tested the following send off.
    That was just his nature.
    But his story is a good one, his life certainly worth a celebratory retelling here.
    His is an All-American, pure blood Utahn tale.
    It originates in Japan, but is deeply rooted in Carbon County soil.
Issei, Nisei, Kibei
    Dave’s family history reflects much of the same vein of diversity that courses through this area’s colorful past. The son of Harold and Helen Matsuda, Dave was born in 1950, into a family already entrenched in Helper.
    Harold Matsuda, though never a political person, had his entire youth shaped by historical forces beyond his control, said Bryon Matsuda, Dave’s younger brother.
    “Dad was a Kibei. In Japanese that means somebody that was born here in America but then their parents took them back to Japan and then they came back to America,” Bryon said of his father.
    Harold was the son of Hisataro and Tomeo Niimi Matsuda, who emigrated to the United States in 1905. They were from Hiroshima who came to the U.S. to earn money so they could afford to buy property when they returned home, which they did after Harold was born.
    “In Japan at that time, at the turn of the Nineteenth and Twentieth centuries, you couldn’t make enough money to buy property if you were just a laborer. A lot of Japanese came to America to work to earn and save money and go back to buy property. They came in 1905. First they came to Hawaii … then they came to California, they were orchard farmers. Dad was born. Then he was taken back to Hiroshima,” Bryon said.
    Harold would eventually return to the U.S. on his own at age 17. He couldn’t speak English. He moved in with his older sister, who was married to a dry cleaner, which is where Harold first learned the trade he would later pass down to his own children.
    Harold’s fate, intertwined as it was with world affairs, eventually landed him in a Japanese internment camp, Topaz, located in Delta during World War II.
    He labored as a beet topper before eventually winning his freedom by acquiring employment through a Salt Lake City dry cleaner. From there he moved to Helper and worked alongside his future wife at OK Cleaners.
    Harold Matsuda was drafted shortly thereafter and sent to Tokyo as an occupation soldier and interpreter.
    “My dad gets interned in the relocation camp. Then he gets out. Then he gets drafted as an occupation troop. Then he goes back to Japan in a GI uniform. He was stationed in Tokyo. But then he goes and visits his mom, his dad had passed away during the war.
“Mom wasn’t blown up on the family farm they’d bought from the money they’d saved in America. The farm wasn’t blown up, it was outside of town. Dad went and visited,” Bryon said.
Harold Matsuda vowed to never return after his military assignment was up; he was disappointed because none of his friends would visit while he was there, Bryon said.
“This is dad’s story. The most apolitical guy in the world, but he gets caught up in the Asian Exclusion Act, when you weren’t allowed to come to America unless you were born here. He gets caught up in the war, in the Japanese internment. Then he gets caught up being an occupation troop as a Japanese-American having to go back to Japan, probably because he grew up in Japan, and this was probably when he was 10 or 12 years older and he’s back in a GI uniform,” Bryon said. “It’s an incredible story. The most non-political guy and he gets caught up in all these political things.”
Harold Matsuda returned home to Helper and in 1948 married Helen Amano, daughter of Katsusaku and Masa Amano.
Helen Matsuda was considered a Nisei.
“A Nisei is a person that was second generation, born here and just stayed here. So my mom was a Nisei, second generation, born in Helper, actually, in a resident apartment, a hotel, above one of the stores there in Helper. They had a family fish market,” Bryon said.
The Amano family came to Helper through Tomogiro Amano, Dave’s great grandfather, who was a coal miner at Spring Canyon among other adventures.
The family did extensive business in Helper. Illustrating the depth of the Amano family’s roots, a mural painted on the side of a downtown building under renovation depicts Helen as a child alongside her grandfather, Tomogiro.
Luke Matsuda, Dave’s nephew, and his wife Malarie, are planning a new farm-to-market produce store at the location.
Luke already owns Matsuda Acupuncture, located just next door to his uncle’s Price dry cleaners, a new generation of Matsuda operating a local business.
By all accounts, Luke was the son Dave never had. Dave helped Luke open his acupuncture business three and a half years ago, laying the floor, painting the walls, family helping family.
Quality Cleaners
Dave learned the dry cleaning business from his parents, who with a loan from Helen’s brother, Yoshitomo “Yosh” Amano, purchased Quality Cleaners with her husband in 1960.
The store was originally located on Main Street in Price.
“If it wasn’t for Yosh and his wife, they probably would’ve never been able to buy Quality Cleaners,” Bryon said.
Dave and Bryon both worked in the store, learning to follow a tradition of labor passed down from Helen and Harold’s family all the way down to them.
Bryon admits Dave excelled at the business, learning both how to provide customer service and take meticulous care of customers’ clothing.
“They (his parents) often did things for customers and refused payment, as an added service,” Bryon said, referring to a family tradition for which Dave was also known.
Harold and Helen operated on Main Street until a fire in 1986 forced them to close.
Harold resisted restarting the business, fearing he was too old to start all over.
Helen, Dave and Bryon decided to purchase the location on East 100 North when it was just a shell of a building.
As Dave’s parents aged, he took further control of the family business, though the traditions and pride remained much the same.
Harold died in 2003. Helen passed the following year.
Dave’s only worker, besides the occasional family help, was Rosalie Gutierrez, who has worked at Quality Cleaners for 29 years.
She told customers last Friday that her last day was March 9.
“Dave was a real good boss. Just me and him worked here,” she said, as customers, including a local Utah Highway Patrol trooper, came and dropped off dry cleaning, likely for the last time.
Gutierrez said she knew Dave was really sick—he’d been leaving early for a few days, something he almost never did.
Best friends
Dave never married, nor did he have any children.
He had lots of friends, though, and customers who he often worked tirelessly to please.
Bryon, younger by two years, said Dave’s “soul brother” was Bill Fox, a Helper taxidermist and retired electrical plant worker.
In fact, Bill and Barbara Fox were as much family to Dave as anyone.
Bill last saw his best friend the night before he died.
“I saw him at 6 p.m. that night (Friday). She found out he hadn’t eaten. We take food to him about twice a week,” Bill said, still shaken a bit by his friend’s passing.
“Dave’s family, he’s been eating with us for years,” Barbara added. “I made him some homemade soup Friday and Bill took it over.”
“He seemed okay,” Bill said. “He came outside and the dog was with him, just to the door. He told me just to put the pan down, he didn’t want to get by me, he said he was still sick.
“I guess what happened, they said that whole pan of soup was still there, though there was a bowl with half of it eaten. So he had to eat the soup and then I think he went to put a log on the fireplace,” Bill said.
Learning later that Meathead had died the following day, Barbara said “Dave was all that dog had.”
Besides Dave’s last day, the couple recalled holiday dinners and hunting and fishing trips with Dave. How Dave helped put their two kids’ Christmas toys together when they were young. How Dave celebrated the holidays with them.
Dave cherished more than 40 years of trapping and fishing and shooting and hunting with his best friend Bill.
The Foxes recalled how Dave never had an unkind word for anyone, never got angry and never bragged about the assorted kind gestures he’d make to his customers.
Barbara shared a cherished memory from her wedding to Bill that summed up Dave and his family’s attitude toward work, family and community.
“Bill and I got married in 1973. We rented out tuxedos at a place in Salt Lake. After the rehearsal, the night before our wedding, my mother asked us to try on our tuxedos. We took them out of the garment bags and none of them fit, they were dirty, they had spaghetti all over them,” Barbara recalled. “We couldn’t get a hold of anyone, we didn’t know who ran the store over there. So Dave’s mom and dad, Helen altered all of them. Dave and Harold cleaned 12 tuxedos, they stayed up till 4 or 5 o’clock in the morning, cleaned and altered all the tuxedos for our wedding.”
“He was my best man, too,” Bill added.
“That’s just the kind of people the Matsudas are,” Barbara said.
Memorial set
A memorial ceremony honoring Dave’s memory is planned for May 19, from 11:30-1:30 p.m., at the Carbon County Event Center in Price.
The family invites the public to join them and Dave’s closest friends for lunch and to recollect all the great moments that made up the man.