The book that brought a family together was titled, appropriately, “We Are Not Strangers.” Jan Rogers, a retired marketing and product manager living in Issaquah, was intrigued when she saw a story in The Seattle Times last October about an upcoming author event. The book, a graphic novel about a local Sephardic Jewish immigrant who helped safeguard the homes and businesses of Japanese American friends in forced incarceration during World War II, sounded fascinating — but she was most drawn by the author’s name, Josh Tuininga.
Jan, whose surname before marriage was also Tuininga, wondered if he might be a relative, perhaps the descendant of some cousins she hadn’t seen in a long time. Though Third Place Books in Lake Forest Park was a long drive from home for her, she knew she needed to go and find out. Around that same time, a little over 30 miles away in Edgewood, Pierce County, Holly Tuininga showed The Times article to her husband, Gary Tuininga.
He definitely didn’t know a Josh Tuininga — “I thought, ‘Who the heck is he?’” Gary remembered — but wondered if this might be that branch of the family that he’d always heard about but never met. “We would call them the Everett Tuiningas,” Gary said. There had been a falling-out in the family, several generations ago, though he didn’t know much about it.
But he was intrigued enough that he and Holly ventured up north of Seattle on that October evening, wondering what they might learn. Fast forward.
