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VY: Yeah, so let's talk about that. So after Topaz, your parents came back to Alameda?

JT: Uh-huh.

VY: And at that time, they have three children, one more on the way, where did they go?

JT: And Nana and Papa, too.

VY: Okay.

JT: And there was, resettlement was difficult because their homes were, we weren't welcome for one thing. But we lived underneath a building behind the church. It was an old brown shingle building, one room, and there were ten of us. Or not ten, we eventually became ten in three years because Mom had David, Susan, and then Carol in three more years, little over three years. And I remember saying to the others, I said, "I bet when she comes home she's going to have another baby," and she did. But we all lived in one room, Nana and Papa, too, and one got chicken pox, everybody got chicken pox, so it was that kind of, we were all... would be terrible, like Covid today, we would have probably, it would have been rampant. And we didn't have a bathroom, lavatory bathroom nor a kitchen. And so they did their cooking across the way in a building, the church parsonage.

VY: So describe that more. Describe the different families that were living, like where were people living? I know people were living in different houses and the church and...

JT: Well, five other families lived in the church across this... it wasn't across the street, it was across the driveway, actually. But it wasn't paved, but they lived there. And they were families who couldn't find housing either. And they'd come and go. It was kind of like a, I call it a sanctuary, literally a sanctuary, a haven. Because our church became, I believe, as a sanctuary for lonely, homesick people.

VY: And which church was this?

JT: Buena Vista United Methodist Church.

VY: And is that what it was called?

JT: It was called the Methodist Episcopal Church South. It was started by two missionary women of a church from Nashville, Tennessee, and they started the church by corralling, I call them, in those days it was 1898, and these bachelors have come from Japan, and it was like the wild wild west, there were no wives, and so they were... it was the wild west, that's all I'll say. And these women, two missionary wives, said, looked at it as an opportunity for them to take them under their wings and teach them scripture and English at the same time. So that's how they started the church, in this little room on Encinal Avenue in Alameda. And it grew, I mean, they became not just a bible study, it became an employment office, housing, they found housing for people, and that's how the church started. So I forget your question.

VY: No, this is good because you're talking about the history of the church.

JT: Of the church, yes. And it grew, it started to grow, and then the men started sending for their "picture brides," and then, of course, it got too big for this one room upstairs on Encinal, so they rented a little Victorian house and became a boarding house, employment office about three blocks away. And this is all part of Alameda Japantown, which is probably about a six-block area in central Alameda where all the Japanese lived. Well, they stuck together for common support, and also because they couldn't live anywhere else. They weren't allowed to live anywhere else, or buy homes. But that's how our church got started, and it grew from there because once the "picture brides" came, then, of course, the next generation started coming, the Nisei, and that's how my mom, well, she was born in 1914 in Alameda, and that house is still there. And we'd go by and it's still standing. Lot of the homes are still standing.

VY: Oh, the house that she was born in?

JT: Where she was born, yeah. But when we lived under the church, there were, first there were... let's see, seven of us. And then every year Mom and Dad had another one, so there were ten. And we never had a bath because there was no bathroom. We had a big, galvanized tub, you know the kind they put watermelons in at picnics and we'd line up, Judy, Jo, Kent, David, Susan, Carol. And Daddy would start with our face, and we'd go to the back of the line and worked the ears all the way down to our feet. And that, every day we had a bath that way, Daddy did it.

VY: So your dad was the one that bathed you.

JT: Uh-huh. And he polished our shoes and washed our shoelaces.

VY: So it sounds like he was the main caregiver.

JT: Well, he did a lot. I mean, he did a lot, he worked three jobs. Well, not then, maybe he worked... in those days, he probably worked as a gardener, because he tells a story of pushing the lawnmower down the street because they couldn't afford trucks or anything. So these guys would push lawnmowers down the street and look for work. But I don't want to say he was a caregiver, I think the caregiver was Nana, my mom's mother, and Papa, her father. Because he would make macaroni and cheese for Mom. Every day she'd come home from school and she'd have a hot lunch that Papa, her father, made for her.

VY: When she was a kid?

JT: Yeah. And so she was, she was well-loved. She was cherished, of course. So it's hard to remember. I mean, it's hard to imagine living like that, but we thought everyone lived like that. We didn't... in fact, I laughed with some people today, I said, we didn't know we were poor because everyone was poor, right? And one of my friends from kindergarten, hakujin, Evie, she said, "You know, Jo" -- because I still see her -- she said, "I thought you were poor." And I said, "Well, what made you think that?" And she said, "You know, every time somebody came over, they brought something, they brought food." Whether it was a can of Hills Brothers coffee or potato chips, doughnuts or whatever, but I said, "That's the Japanese way." It was not beaten into us, but we knew we do not go anywhere, visit anyone without taking something. Even if it's just an orange or an apple, but you do that. But she thought we were poor because it was, people were bringing us food, but we brought people things, too. It was Japanese, it was a value. And you always left with something, too. [Laughs] You probably know that in a Japanese community, you never leave a party or anything without a paper plate or something full of something.

VY: Yeah, that is so interesting that this little kid, who wasn't part of the community, saw this happening, and she took that to mean it was like charity.

JT: Right.

VY: That you didn't have enough to eat, that sort of thing. That's so funny from a kid's perspective.

JT: Right, and she also came home with me for lunch from school, and we'd have rice and she'd put cream and sugar on it, and we were gagging. [Laughs] Because we were eating ochazuke or whatever and she's putting cream and sugar on her rice. We still laugh about that. We're in our, almost eighty now and we're laughing about it.

VY: So you're still friends?

JT: Oh, yeah, yeah. That's really special to have friends like that. I have another one who grew up next door and we're still friends, precious.

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