> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://www.cascadepbs.org/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # Mossback's Northwest: The Great Wedding Scandal of 1909 - URL: https://www.cascadepbs.org/mossbacks-northwest-2/2026/11/mossbacks-northwest-the-great-wedding-scandal-of-1909/ - Published: 2026-11-06T13:00:00.000Z - Updated: 2026-11-06T12:59:59.000Z - Description: In love and determined to marry, an interracial couple from California ties the knot in Seattle, one of the few places where their love was legal. - Author: Knute Berger - Tags: Mossback's Northwest, #article, #popular, #news, history, #top-article It started with an engagement announcement in early March of 1909\. The bride was the daughter of the Archdeacon of the Episcopal Church of California whose family lived in Corte Madera in Marin County at a family home called “Daisy Grange.” What made big news was this: the prospective groom was a young Japanese man who was a member of the archdeacon’s household, and the bride-to-be a young, blue-eyed white woman—“the fair picture of girlish innocence,” one newspaper wrote. What wouldn’t be unusual today was scandalous in California where anti-Asian sentiment was strong. The daughter of an archdeacon marrying a supposed “houseboy” was scandalous on its own, but such interracial marriages were also barred by law in the state. Could their love overcome the marriage ban, social stigma, and an eruption of race hatred? They were about to find out. The groom-to-be was Gunjiro Aoki, a young man said to be in his mid-20s. His fiancé was Helen Gladys Emery, aged 21\. Gunjiro was living in the archdeacon’s home to enhance his Christian education. His elder brother was a pastor at an Episcopal mission for Japanese in San Francisco. It was said Gunjiro’s family traced its line to a noble one of ancient samurai. The two fell in love. Helen’s father, John Emery, disapproved, but her mother Sophronia Frances Emery supported the proposed union, creating a family rift. Aoki’s family wasn’t thrilled about the engagement either. The couple’s declaration of love and intent to marry caused an out-pouring of threats and hatred that made headlines up and down the West Coast and beyond. It drove intense scrutiny that put the couple’s safety in question. An angry local mob greeted Helen and her mother at the Corte Madera train station where Helen was subjected to angry women hurling abuse, rice, and calla lilies. Gunjiro Aoki, traveling separately, had bricks thrown at him when he left town along with threats of being tarred and feathered. The Oakland Tribune reported a friend of the Emery’s saying of Helen and her mom, “I believe the mother and girl must be demented, as she sanctions the marriage of her daughter to a Mongolian despite the wishes of her husband and many friends.” ![](https://www.cascadepbs.org/content/images/2026/11/Couple.png) Helen Gladys Emery and Gunjiro Aoki (Brenda Wong Aoki) Mrs. Emery fired back: “We are minding our own business, and I wish that others would do the same. Mr. Aoki is a Christian and a gentleman and my daughter loves him….I think the attitude of the people of California in Japanese matters is a disgrace.” And it wasn’t just in California. Oregon, Idaho, Montana, Nevada and Wyoming all had laws against interracial marriages like this one. The only real option was to find a state that would allow them to wed. The closest was Washington which, since the late 1860s, had no racial marriage restrictions. They had been eliminated in the Reconstruction era to align with new Constitutional guarantees. But the law was only part of the problem. Civil and church officials often found ways to discourage or deny such unions by questioning the ID of marriage applicants and their witnesses. Many churches and some judges refused to sanction interracial alliances, despite the lack of a legal prohibition. And there was public approbation. In the press, the Aoki and Emery union was portrayed in racially charged ways. Helen was sometimes referred to as being a “child,” Gunjiro as a scheming “Oriental" who lied about his background, a servant who had seduced a young girl. There were also claims that Helen had been hypnotized into the engagement. That it could be a genuine love match was largely dismissed. Helen didn’t care even if Gunjiro had a sketchy past as a ne’er do well and womanizer as was claimed by some members of the Japanese community. In a personal letter to Gunjiro published in the San Francisco Examiner, she wrote “Oh, my sweetheart, mother and I could be so happy with you, even in only one room and eating nothing but bread and water….” She signed the letter “Your loving Miko San.” So, the couple headed to Washington, but threats continued. They were warned not to try marrying in Oregon where another mixed race couple had been driven out of town under threat of arrest as “vagrants.” In Vancouver, WA, the city attorney dared them to try getting married there saying he would do all he could to prevent the union. A rough greeting was expected if they stopped in Tacoma. The couple traveled separately to avoid attention, Helen with her mother. Helen’s father came too by himself, still opposed but resigned. If they were to be married, he wanted it done in his denomination’s church. Not everyone in Seattle was sympathetic. The Rev. Mark Matthews of the First Presbyterian Church, one of the city’s best-known clergymen and a leading progressive, announced his opposition in the Seattle Times: “My belief is that no Anglo-Saxon girl should be allowed to wed a man of an alien race nor am I in favor of any marriage between whites and those of different races….There should be a law against it.” The Times also painted Archdeacon Emery as the victim with the frontpage headline “Girl’s love of Oriental wrecks home of her father.” Once in Seattle they got their wedding license and on March 27 they were wed in a quick ceremony at Trinity Episcopal Church on First Hill by the church’s rector Rev. Herbert Henry Gowen, a Japan scholar who had been a missionary in Asia and that year founded the Department of Oriental Studies at the University of Washington, now morphed into the Jackson School of International Studies. ![](https://www.cascadepbs.org/content/images/2026/11/Trinity-2.png) Trinity Parish Church 1905 (MOHAI) Their marriage did have costs beyond the trauma of racism. Helen lost her American citizenship. After the brief ceremony, John Emery returned alone to California, estranged from his wife and daughter. He resigned his position with the church. Aoki’s brother was forced to quit the mission he’d founded. In the meantime, legislators in Olympia proposed new laws against mixed marriages. They failed. The couple and Helen’s mother retreated to the rural Eastside of Lake Washington to escape the storm of publicity in hopes of regaining privacy and a new start. The area they chose was no stranger to such marriages. Spurred by the Aoki-Emery union, the Times wrote a story a few months later about a “Lake Washington colony” that it called a “practical experiment in mingling Oriental and Occidental races.” Newspapers continued speculate about whether and when they would divorce or separate. The couple did move back to California and eventually had four children. Archdeacon Emery and his wife divorced. Mrs. Emery continued to live with her daughter and son-in-law. They remained married until Gunjiro’s death in 1932 but are said to have led separate lives in later years. Helen changed her last name to Oakie—a name not so Asian sounding—then remarried and the family was said to have lived as “whites.” Helen got her American citizenship back in 1933\. She died in 1947. The trauma of their engagement and marriage made life difficult, excruciating under such a public and hateful lens. But Helen and Gunjiro fought for their right to follow their hearts just like everyone else--whatever the outcome.