Yoko Ishikawa
March 20, 1950 – December 12, 2021 (age 71)

Yoko Ishikawa, passed away suddenly on Sunday, December 12, 2021 at Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center, after a difficult battle with Parkinson's.

Yoko is survived by her daughters, Christina Parks (John) of Salisbury, MD and Caroline Fitzgerald (Anthony Spalding) of Costa Mesa, CA; her grandsons, John and Declan Parks of Salisbury, MD; her siblings, Ryuhei Ishikawa of Tucson, AZ and Chizuko Greensmith (Clive) of Los Angeles, CA and their children: Kotaro and Nanako Ishikawa of Tokyo, Japan, Tora and Forrest Ishikawa of Tucson, AZ and Hanako Greensmith of Chicago, IL. She is predeceased by her parents, Hisashi and Ryoko Ishikawa of Sayamashi, Japan and her daughter's beloved chihuahua, Dresden, who she would often be heard calling "Dreeesssden."

Yoko was born on March 20, 1950 in Kobe, Japan. In Kobe, she attended St. Michael's International School where she learned to speak English fluently. When her family moved to Tokyo she attended St. Dominico Gakuen Junior and Senior High school where she made life-long friends. Upon high school graduation, she studied at the University of the Sacred Heart in Tokyo and majored in French. She then studied at Santa Clara University and majored in Romance Languages at a time when not many Japanese women were traveling to the US for an education. She was also the Captain of the Women's Basketball Team there. After graduation, she worked for JAL at Haneda airport and shortly afterwards met John Fitzgerald while he was working for the US embassy in Tokyo. In 1976, they married in Honolulu, Hawaii and danced their first dance to "Can't Help Falling in Love with You" by Elvis Presley, one of her favorite artists. For the next 10 years, they would be stationed around the world with his employment with the US State Department. She believed staying active was an important part of life and shined in many activities. She was a talented tennis player and while in Burma she was Captain of the team that won the 1983 Burmese National Women's Tennis Championship. She was a skilled skier and often recounted the story of completely twisting her knee on a particularly treacherous run while heli-skiing. She was an avid golfer and would often say it was because it was "in her blood" as her great grandfather, Arthur Hesketh Groom opened the first golf course in Japan in 1903, Kobe Golf Club, when he literally brought the sport over from England. She would finally settle in Potomac, MD where she raised her daughters and put down roots. She worked for USAssist in Washington, DC and then Bethesda, MD, climbing the corporate ladder until she was the head of the Japan Department. She would take a team of agents to translate for Japanese athletes at the Atlanta Olympics and was very close to the bomb site when it exploded. She often said those were her best years, where she was nicknamed the "General" for her directness and sharp intellect and "Loco Yoko" for her cutting sense of humor. She took up ballroom dancing at Arthur Murray and developed a passion for it, especially West Coast Swing. She would then move to Chicago, IL when the company merged and became AXA Assistance, but would soon strike-out on her own, creating Yoko & Associates, moving to Southern California. She loved her daughters and when asked "what did you want to be when you grew up?" she always answered, "a mother." It is our greatest regret that her grandchildren will never know her for the incredible person she was.

A funeral service will be held at 11:00am on Tuesday, December 28, 2021 at Fukui Mortuary, 707 East Temple Street, Los Angeles, CA 90012 followed by a cremation ceremony at Evergreen Cemetery.

Flowers are welcomed by the family and can be delivered to Fukui Mortuary in memoriam.