<Begin Segment 8>

PW: So it sounds like after Topaz closed, that they ended up back in the Bay Area, they didn't go anywhere else. After your mother's travels, though, she just... when did your father get back to the mainland?

KY: He was discharged in '47. And I think he proposed. I'm not sure about this, but my guess is that he proposed on Valentine's Day of '47. Because my mother, who saves everything, I found this calendar. And on February 14th, says, oh, she sort of seemed disappointed. And then later on there's a note, "He asked the question." So that was February. He got out, they got married in April of '47.

PW: Where did they get married?

KY: They got married at the Yatabe family house, and lots of pictures, I have lots of pictures, it's just in front of the house. And it was just a few people. And the funny thing is, I was just reading over my notes of when I interviewed her and it looks like she was married by a Reverend Yamashita from the Oakland Methodist Church. So I think it's (a relative of) Ann Dion's, it was everyone's relative, right, the Yamashita? So that was funny. I mean, it was interesting that, see, my father considered himself Christian because when he and my Auntie Toshi were young, some white woman in the neighborhood took them to the Presbyterian church in West Berkeley. So he considered himself Christian, because I'm kind of surprised, my mother was such a Buddhist.

PW: Where was the Yatabe house?

KY: Oh, it was on University and Sixth. It was right across the street from the public health building. So I grew up there. I mean, I spent the first nine years of my life in that house.

<End Segment 8> - Copyright © 2022 Densho. All Rights Reserved.