Hero #19 Bob Fletcher

In early 1942, the U.S. government interned 120,000 Japanese-Americans because of their ancestry. Among them were several of Bob Fletcher’s neighbors.
He arranged to take care of their (combined) 90 acres of farmland while they were gone. He worked 18-hours days, paid their bills from the proceeds, and lived in one of the tenement bunkhouses rather than their homes. Although the three families offered him all of the profits from his efforts, he kept only half. Before the families came back, his wife even cleaned their houses.

Other white farmers harassed Fletcher his compassion. Special interests used the war as an excuse to drive the more productive Japanese-American farmers out of business. [Source] I see such conduct as shameful.

To me, Bob Fletcher stands out as a person who valued integrity, honesty, and humanity. Those were rare qualities then, just as they are now.

Fletcher died in 2013 at the age of 101. Said Doris Takeda, who was 12 years-old when she and her family were interned in Arkansas:

"He saved us." [Source]