It’s one of the couple’s most prized possessions – the black-and-white photo of when they first met almost 60 years ago in Japan.

Bob Olson, the dapper American solider, wears a suit and tie in the picture. The smiling girl in a kimono is Seiko Olson (then Seiko Itoyama), the daughter from a well-respected family.

The photo was taken at one of their coworker’s wedding receptions. While all other eyes looked at the camera, Bob and Seiko looked at one another – tenderly holding hands.

Today, that image of the two of them hangs on the couple’s wall in their home in Bellevue – the city they’ve lived in for 44 years.

“[The picture] is very special to us,” said Bob, 81.

This husband and wife are living history – Bellevue history.

Together, Bob and Seiko have seen the city transform into a diverse cultural landscape that they feel at home in. It’s here where their biracial children have grown up to become leaders in the Eastside technology industry, and where they live side-by-side with families from Hong Kong, Thailand and Taiwan in the Lake Hills neighborhood.

When they first arrived in the Pacific Northwest in 1967, it wasn’t like in Florida, where they were advised not to go at the time because their mixed-race marriage wasn’t even legally recognized. But it wasn’t easy.

“People didn’t put me down, but there weren’t many other Japanese people,” said Seiko, 79, who was once denied service at a restaurant while the couple was traveling to their vacation home in Ocean Shores in the late ’60s; the owner thought she was Indian.

While a mixed-race, mixed-culture marriage may have once been discouraged, Bob has never seen Seiko as anything less than the girl of his dreams.

“I wasn’t ahead of my time, I was with the times,” he said.

Bob’s long and quirky career included being a soldier, counselor, teacher, author of several books and prison-reform advocate. He was involved with Youth Eastside Services when it was still called Heads Up. But the role of Seiko’s husband is one of his proudest accomplishments.

Seiko has made her own contributions to local history, as well. When Bellevue and Yao City in Osaka Prefecture were joined as sister cities in 1969, Seiko was appointed as official translator. She’s shown her  Japanese calligraphy at the Bellevue Arts Fair, and was also the last student to be taken on by legendary Pacific Northwest brush-stroke artist, Chikuji Katayama.

These days, Seiko is plagued by constant tendinitis pain and because of Bob’s frail legs, he has to take an electric scooter to pick up the newspaper from his yard each week.

While age has slowed them down in some ways, it has never affected Bob’s affection for his wife.

“I am constantly blessed by her love and care,” he says.

Photo by Gabrielle Nomura, THE BELLEVUE REPORTER