<Begin Segment 15>

JT: Well, you know what? I wanted to ask you, in your travels, Kenji, when did you meet Mary? I'm changing the, we're getting on another ship here, but where was Mary all this time? How did you meet?

MT: Probably at the church.

JT: Do you remember?

KT: No. Let's see. Oh, well, we were with some group of people that liked to go skiing, and Mary was one of those.

JT: Do you remember what year that was? Let's see, if you got married in 1951...

MT: '57.

JT: Oh, '57. Okay. Am I putting you on the spot?

KT: I don't remember. [Laughs]

JT: Was it with a group of friends from Cal or just a group of...

MT: No, from church.

JT: Oh, from church.

MT: So like Grace Haratani.

JT: Oh, that group. See, you're a little older than I am, so I don't know those people very well.

MT: [Laughs] Right.

JT: Oh, so you met on a ski trip. And where were you from? Where was Mary coming from? Alameda?

KT: Yeah.

MT: Kenji used to go to the Buena Vista.

JT: So after the war, when you came back to Alameda, you continued going to church at Buena Vista?

MT: Periodically.

KT: Periodically.

JT: Oh, I understand. So then you met Mary and you were married in 1957? And where did you live after you got married?

KT: In Berkeley above Shattuck Avenue. That's when the trains were still...

JT: Oh, like on north side? More downtown?

MT: Uh-huh.

JT: Okay.

MT: Near Dwight and Shattuck.

KT: So you noticed the train travel at the beginning, but then you get used to it. Our apartment was just about, oh, quarter of a block from Shattuck.

JT: So you could hear the train all the time. But that made it convenient to get to work. You worked for the state, so you didn't...

MT: By then he changed his job. No longer worked for the Public Health, worked for the Public Utilities. Right, Kenji?

JT: So you fixed up all the hospitals and then you got another job?

KT: Yeah. Kept taking exams, and so I got on another list, and then it was from hospitals to...

JT: Public Utilities.

KT: Public Utilities.

JT: And what did you do there? And did you have to travel as much as before?

KT: Not as much. But you still traveled. We had to audit these water companies. But they would ask for rates to increase their revenues.

JT: Yeah, like everything changes but the paycheck, they're still doing that. So then when you were working in those jobs, did you feel any discrimination being Japanese?

KT: No.

JT: Not at all? Okay. That's amazing. You never felt prejudice. How about when you moved here to San Rafael? Were there a lot of Japanese in this area?

KT: There weren't that many Japanese.

JT: And did you come here, did you choose to live here for your work? To be close to work?

KT: When we got married and we bought a home in Walnut Creek, and that was about two years.

MT: About four years after we got married.

KT: Yeah, four years. And then we thought...

MT: The reason why we lived in Walnut Creek was because I was working in Pittsburg.

KT: Okay.

MT: And then after that I got pregnant and had Paul. And then he got transferred to Los Angeles.

JT: Oh, is that where you disappeared? So you all went.

KT: But I said, I told my boss that if there's an opening in the San Francisco office...

JT: "Put me down."

KT: Put me down. He gave me first choice to come back to San Francisco. And he said okay, and so when I went down to L.A., one year later, there was an opening in the San Francisco offices.

JT: So you had Paul by then.

MT: Right.

JT: You had Paul, okay. So you moved back here?

MT: Well, this time we didn't have to move to Walnut Creek because I wasn't working anymore.

JT: Okay.

MT: So we decided to stay closer. From San Rafael to San Francisco is a much easier commute.

JT: Right, okay.

KT: My Chinese friend was working... he bought a home.

JT: The same fellow that you went to Cincinnati with?

KT: No.

JT: Oh, different guy?

KT: Yeah.

JT: Okay.

KT: This guy that I worked with.

MT: Was he with the Public Health, too, Kenji?

KT: Oh, I guess so, when we were in Public Health. He eventually came in. He took my job in Public Health when I moved out --

JT: To the Public Utilities.

KT: Yeah. And then so he's the one that bought a home in this area. And he said, "Oh, the commute is not bad." Famous last words.

<End Segment 15> - Copyright © 2021 Densho. All Rights Reserved.