Masako Kalina

Masako was born on December 5, 1928 in Isahya, Japan on the southern island of Kyushu. She and her younger sister grew up on a small rural farm owned by her family tucked between two mountains within a river valley. Her father was a country doctor and her mother was in charge of the farm. She lost her mother at a young age and when she was in her late teens she left home to work in a factory in the nearby city of Nagasaki in post-WWII Japan. She eventually met William Kalina (U.S. Navy Sailor stationed in Sasebo) through mutual friends and they fell in love and were married on July 16, 1957. She moved with her husband to the United States in 1962 and lived in Keyport, Washington. She worked as a CNA at the Poulsbo Martha and Mary Nursing Home and moonlighted as a waitress at a Japanese Restaurant in Silverdale. She and her husband had a baby boy in October 1968 who they named William Kalina, Jr. They eventually moved from Keyport to Port Orchard in 1977 where she lived with her family for 46 years. She recently passed away at The Ridge Nursing Home located in Silverdale on August 19, 2023 at the age of 94. She will be fondly remembered as a strong, caring, and loving wife, mother and grandmother. She was selfless and always put her family’s needs above her own. Her close friends also remember her as a generous and giving person who always lent a helping hand when needed. Her favorite hobbies were gardening, fishing and watching Seahawks and Huskies football. Her life was an inspiration to her family and friends as she lived it to the fullest each day on her own terms in her home right up until the end. Her grandson proclaimed her to be the “Hero of the Kalina Family”. She is survived by her son (William, Jr.), Daughter-in-Law (Natalia), granddaughter (Amber) and grandson (Anton).