<Begin Segment 13>

BS: Jo, why don't you ask Mary what she recalls, if anything, about her birth mother Takeno's sewing skills before going to the sewing school, the Imagire Sewing School?

JT: Okay. We have some photographs which show your mother, birth mother, Takeno, attending the Imagire sewing school in the '20s and early '30s. Do you remember her, anything about that? Did she talk about that, did she talk about that at all to you, going to sewing school?

MT: You know, when we were kids and she lived in Alameda, she worked from her house doing embroidery. So Grace has some samples of her mother's embroidery work. But she used to put initials on tablecloths.

JT: You call that monograms, like monograms?

MT: Yeah, she did those kind of things.

JT: Oh my gosh.

MT: That was her business, actually.

JT: Oh, so she was a professional monogrammer, I think embroiderer.

MT: Well, I think she must have gone through some...

JT: The training to get that.

MT: Maybe, but she was very skilled at that. I think she was very good with her hands. The Alameda mother was not very skilled with minor details like that.

JT: Oh, your adopted mother.

MT: My adopted mother was not that, she's more into cooking, that kind of stuff.

JT: More domestic, but she was a heck of a good cook, I remember that.

MT: Yeah. Whereas my biological mother was not much of a cook.

JT: Oh, my gosh. Your mother made the best kuri manju, did you know that?

MT: Right, she did. She was good at that.

JT: That's interesting. So did Takeno, your mother, your adopted mother and your birth mother, did they stay close?

MT: Oh, yeah. They were, like I said, they were first cousins. I think, if I'm not mistaken, when we went to visit Japan, they lived next door to each other.

JT: Okay. So actually it's a wonderful story. At first I was sad, but now that I heard it all, I feel very happy for all of you. Because even though you were twins who didn't grow up together, it was like being in one really close family.

MT: Yeah, we were actually one big family.

JT: And do you still see Grace? She lives far away.

MT: Well, we talk to each other a lot.

JT: Okay. And to you reminisce?

MT: Yeah, sometimes.

JT: Oh, that's great. Anything else?

BS: No, I was just curious if you remembered anything about the sewing school that she went to or if you even knew about it. Did you even know about the sewing school that your mother went to, your birth mother, Takeno?

MT: No.

JT: Because that was in 19... and you were, she wasn't born.

BS: So you don't have any materials from Takeno's time, like clothing that she may have made?

MT: No, but she did give me an embroidery.

JT: Do you have it?

MT: Yeah, I don't know where it is right now, somewhere in the closet.

<End Segment 13> - Copyright © 2021 Densho. All Rights Reserved.