INTRODUCTION: 
     I have previously written a guide entitled "Carved Wood Perfume Bottles".    My favorite collection of these were made by John Oya and Company. There is very little information about this company on the internet, though his bottles are highly prized.   After some research on him I have decided to write this guide on John Oya the man and another guide on his bottles. This guide gives the information about his life as I have been able to discover. If there are additions or corrections to be made, I would most sincerely appreciate such comment so that all might benefit.


JOHN OYA -- Early Years
       John A. OYA was born on September 14, 1903 somewhere in Japan.   HIs parents named him AKINORI  (translates roughly as "shining example, bright pattern") as perhaps their hope for a better life in the new century.  The name  "John" was no doubt  added after his arrival in Hawaii.  Four years later, his father HASHITARO OYA left little Akinori and his mother in Japan and emigrated to Hawaii to work on a sugar plantation.  About 180,000 Japanese laborers were brought to the Hawaiian islands between 1886 - 1908.  When their contracts with the pineapple and sugar companies expired, most of the Japanese either returned to Japan or migrated to the U.S. mainland.  Approximately one third decided to remain in Hawaii.  Hashitaro was among those who remained.
     Akinori finally joined his father in Hawaii in 1915.  I could not discover if his mother came at the same time or if she had passed away leaving 12-year-old Akinori alone to leave Japan.  By the 1920 Census, Akinori was living with his father in North Kohala, Hawaii, Hawaii Territory  (Hawaii had become a territory of the United States on June 14, 1900).  Both were working on a sugar plantation.  Akinori was 17 years old.
     During the next decade (1920-1930), Akinori's life would take new directions.  He would become a citizen and add the name "John" to his name; he would leave the sugar industry, move back to the island of Oahu;  obtain a job as an automobile machinist; and he would get married.
     Akinori married Shizuko Shiraki ca. 1925 (based on age of oldest child in 1930 census).  Her father, Kinitaro Shiraki, had arrived in Japan in 1896 before the Oya's.  Her mother, Gin, came in 1903 and a year later Shizuko was born as a "citizen" of the United States in the Territory of Hawaii.  The Shiraki family lived in Waimea on the island of Kauai.

     A search of patent office records reveals a patent granted to John A. Oya of Honolulu for an Automobile Light Indicator.  He had applied for the patent on July 16, 1927.  The purpose of his invention was to "positively indicate to the operator whether the head and tail lights are illuminated when intended."  The patent application was drawn up Munn & Company, attorneys.  That company was the major Scientific American Patent Agency and was partially responsible for the growth of the American patent system.  Akinori signed the patent petition as "John" A. Oya.  The patent was not approved until 2 years later.
        John Oya filed another patent on July 1, 1930 for a Toilet Seat and Seat Cover Actuatiing Mechanism that would eliminate the need to manually raise and lower a toilet seat and its cover and thereby prevent contamination when they were not clean or sanitary.  I wonder what motivated this invention!?!  Both patents show he had skills in drafting, was a problem solver, and was inventive.

     The 1930 Census revealed Akinori Oya (not "John" yet though he had used that names on his two patents) living in Honolulu.  He was the head of the household which included his wife, Shizuko; two small children Ernest T. and Alice T. (two more daughters would be born after 1930); two young boarders; and his father.  Hatsutaro was then 58 and worked as a "yardman" at a hotel.  Akinori was working as an automobilie machinist, which no doubt helps explain his turn light indicator invention.  As you can see, John A. Oya was a man of many talents and experiences!!
     Perhaps, he intended to make a career as a machinist, but something changed in his life that moved him away from mechanics and toward making Hawaiian souvenirs.  Perhaps it was the Great Depression of the 1930's.  Though The Great Depression did not impact Hawaii as deeply as it did the mainland United states, it did have an influence.  For Akinori it meant a change of careers.
     Evidence for Akinori's career change came in the form of another patent -- this time for a carved wood perfume bottle.  John Akinori Oya applied for a patent with Roy Albert Larson.  they were listed as "assignors for the Hollister Drug Company.  This would indicate that Akinori left or lost his former job as an auto machinist and found a new job with Hollister's Drug.  In the application, John and Roy introduce themselves as "citizens of the United States" as well as "residents of Honolulu, Territory of Hawaii".  This bottle patent was the first of the Oya series of wood perfume bottles.
                     

      Why did he turn to perfume bottles?  The first Hawaiian perfumes were introduced by Gump's Department Store in 1935.  The perfumes available were pikake, pink plumeria, and fern lei.  Each was sold in hand-carved wood bottles.  This was partly promoted as a new souvenir for the tourists that stayed at the Royal Hawaiian Hotel next to the store.  Was Oya there?  I have found no evidence of that.   But the souvenir bottles  became popular and caused others to imitate them with their own designs.  

OYA DESIGNS
       Again, we can refer to the records of the U.S. Patent Office for evidence.   He applied for patents for a bottle or similar container in the Torch Ginger design in June of 1938
                                 ; 
for a flacon (perfume bottle) of a trumpet flower design:                        ,
a flacon showing two palm tree design     
, for his Tiki Warrior god,
 and the Plumeria flower .

     Two more flacon designs were applied for in October of 1938. The designs were for his Night Bloom Cerus holder and for his Hibiscus/Anthurium holder .
     The patents were written up for him by Munn, Anderson, & Liddy. [In 1938 Munn and Company had come under new management -- Liddy was Sylvester Liddy father of G. Gordon Liddy of White Water fame.] I did not find patents for other known bottles of his. The above patents only were granted for a period of 3 1/2 years. He may have applied for other patents and/or re-applied to extend existing ones. I just have not found the information. What can be deduced is that his company was getting started by 1938.  
     Several other companies were in competition with him and even had similar designs. Gump's put out their own bottles that look slightly like a pineapple. Harder's, Hula-Lei, and M. Gelby (I have only seen one of their bottles). produced floral and figural wood bottles similar to Oya's.

     This is the earliest label I have seen for John Oya's flacons:    
One of the things which makes the label interesting is that it gives the address of his company --2021 Republican St. If you look this up on a map today, the only building near it is an Air Conditioning Store. "T.H." stands for "Territory of Hawaii". This must be a smaller bottle than later ones, for it only holds 1/8 fluid oz or 1 dram while most of his later bottles held 1/4 oz. or 2 drams. The other point of interest in this early label is that the perfume is called "Synthetic".

JOHN A. OYA & COMPANY
     John A. Oya & Co. is the name of his company, so who made up the "company"? A news article in the Honolulu Star Bulletin for July 19, 2007 talked about the career of a master wood carver Paul Fugimoto who worked for Oya. The article stated that: "Fugimoto ran a commercial wood ship in Kalihi from the 1940s until his death in the 1980's. His works included 7-foot, 900-poiund tikis, perfume bottles for Oya and Co. . . .." Therefore, the Oya company hired master wood carver Fugimoto and probably others to put out the large quantity of wood perfume bottles required to meet tourist demand.
     Shizuko, his wife, was a main support and participant in the company.  She filed for two bottle patents in 1943.  These two patents for her designs were for the tallest of the Oya bottles -- the seahorse and the Angel fish!!  I had always assumed that these were John's designs.  Shizuko also applied for a patent on a ladies' belt in a fish design.  John liked flowers and Shizuko liked fish!

RETIREMENT: 
      There may be some significance that no more patents were filed for by John after 1939 and no more by Shizuko after 1943.  Was John so immersed in keeping his business functioning during the war years that he no longer applied for patents?  Did the company no longer create new designs?  Or did they just not feel the need to bother with patents?  Or, did the war somehow incapacitate John A. Oya, leaving his wife and "company" to continue operations??

     The zip code given for John A. Oya's death residence was 96819.   This is the location for Hawi, Hawaii. "Hawi is a quaint little town located at the north tip of The Big Island, just fifty miles from the Kona Airport and 75 miles from Hilo. Twenty miles over the nearby National Scenic Highways 'Mountain Road,' takes you to the old ranch town of Waimea. Hawi is considered the principle town of the North Kohala region, and was once a thriving center of Hawaiian culture and population, surrounded by bustling sugar plantations. Today Hawi, and its’ neighboring towns of Kapaau and Makapala have become a haven for artists, retirees and those seeking an alternative to the busy lifestyle of other Big Island resort cities. Hawi is known for its’ beautiful village green and unique restaurants . . .." This suggests that John had returned to the region where he had once lived with his father in the 1920's and resided there until his own death in 1971 at the age of 68.
     When did he retire? Again, I have not discovered this information. I do know that his bottles were still being purchased in Hawaii during the 1950's. By 1959 when Hawaii became a state, he would have been only 56 years old which in those days was relatively a young age to retire. Some of his bottles do not carry the T.H. designation and therefore  probably continued to be made in the early 1960's.   But, by that time, the taste for carved wood perfume wood bottles was being replaced by Aloha shirts, and other souvenir items. So perhaps, he turned to other products.  
     I have seen a carved salt and pepper shaker made by his company, some coconut seahorse buttons, a coconut buckle with palm trees.  These all appear to be items for a more feminine market (Shizuko?) and may be a clue that she was running the business rather than John.   Or perhaps this just indicates that the perfume bottles they offered were no longer in demand and  his business declined, forcing retirement. 
     His daughter Alice died in 1979 and his wife Shizuko lived for many more years until she died in 2000 at the age of 98.

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