Koreans express ‘gratitude’ to Riverside mayor for father’s war service

Riverside's link with South Korea is deepening, and the mayor's family history is unexpectedly playing a part.

Attentive readers already know about Korean independence leader Ahn Chang-Ho's years in Riverside. About a private effort to establish a $50 million Korean cultural center here. And about a sister-city delegation that included the mayor traveling to Korea in late April on a privately funded goodwill visit.

Speaking of goodwill, Mayor Patricia Lock Dawson's father served in the Korean War, a plain fact that proved to be a calling card, or maybe mic-drop moment, everywhere.

Her father's service had already come up last fall during a formal dinner at the Korean Consulate in Los Angeles. "Everyone gasped when they heard that," she told me in April. It wasn't a reaction she typically gets. But she's gotten it more lately.

Traveling in Korea on the 10-day trip, with a tightly focused itinerary, she met five mayors or vice mayors. In her remarks, she would say: "My father served in the Korean War." It would be translated.

"There would be this silence, this reverence," Lock Dawson recalled in an interview last week in her office.

"They would thank me. It was incredible, the amount of respect, the reaction, that would evoke, just by mentioning it," she said. "They have an enormous amount of love for our country. We fought by their side in the war. They’re still fighting it."

Not with arms, but as long as North Korea remains a hermit kingdom ruled by a dictator, South Korea's work on behalf of freedom isn't done.

Her father, Joseph Lock, was in the Army and the Marines. He died in 1995. The mayor admits she doesn't know much about his service, probably because he was in intelligence. "As kids," she said, "we never got to hear what he did."

The attention continued after her return. The mayor of Gangnam, who was on his way to L.A., stopped in Riverside on May 15 for a meeting with Lock Dawson in her office and a luncheon. He presented her with a plaque of appreciation.

The plaque's text thanks her for her support in their sister-city relationship, and is also offered "as a token of our deepest respect and gratitude to the late Joseph Lock, father of Mayor Dawson, who dedicated his life to protecting the freedom of the Republic of Korea during the Korean War."

The mayor was caught on camera wiping away a tear. Her reaction surprised her.

"I’m not a crier," Lock Dawson told me.

(As the saying goes, "pictures or it didn't happen." Thankfully there's photo evidence, in case the circumstance is never repeated.)

The attention, well-intentioned as it was, was awkward for her, as if she were being given credit for a personal achievement. She isn't Joseph Lock. She's just Joseph Lock's daughter.

"I didn't do anything," the mayor said. "It was my dad … I’m going to get weepy again."

She didn't, but her voice wavered for a moment.

Back to business.

The trip to Korea was productive, the mayor said. Beforehand she’d told me they had arranged a meeting with the CEO of Samsung Biologics. She demurred naming any names upon her return but said simply: "We did make a connection with a major company and we will be meeting with them again."

The proposed cultural center, for which private interests are raising money, was discussed in every city the delegation visited.

"Every time we told them we were going to build a Dosan center" — using a shorthand term for Ahn Chang-Ho — "that sparked great interest," she said. They met legislator Bae Hyun-jin, who knew all about the center, which is being promoted by the Dosan Foundation.

"The Korean government has committed money to it," Lock Dawson said. "They’re already 50% to their fundraising goal. They want to have it done pretty quickly."

If they want it done quickly, they may have picked the wrong state. Nevertheless, a potential site above Citrus State Historic Park has been identified and was visited by the Gangnam delegation May 15. Owned by the city's utilities department, it's still to be determined whether the site is available to be used for a cultural center and, if not, what a comparable site might be.

The Gangnam mayor signed a memorandum of understanding that memorializes the partnership with the city and the Dosan Federation on the cultural center.

The idea is that the center "would educate people on democracy in the world and the role of Dosan in Riverside and in Korea," Lock Dawson told me.

Such a center exists in Gangnam, in a big city park, where Ahn and his wife are buried. A street leading to it is named Riverside, using the city's raincross symbol.

There's also a statue of Ahn, similar to the life-sized one on Riverside's Main Street pedestrian mall since 2001.

"They have that same statue. They copied from us," Lock Dawson said with a smile. "But it's three times the size. It's huge."

In Korea, he was bigger than life.

Dan Bernstein was columnist for the Press-Enterprise for 32 years before his 2014 retirement, making him possibly the most prolific and best-read writer in the Inland Empire. Now author of a memoir about his decades of playing trombone and the musicians he's met along the way, he’ll be talking about "He Kept His Day Job: Fanfare for the Common Musician" at 1:30 p.m. Sunday at the Culver Center for the Arts, 3834 Main St., Riverside. Besides yakking, Bernstein promises — or is that threatens? — to bring his trombone.

David Allen writes Wednesday, Friday and Sunday, three sad trombones. Email [email protected], phone 909-483-9339, like davidallencolumnist on Facebook and follow @davidallen909 on Twitter.

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