<Begin Segment 9>

LH: But you had mentioned in one of our earlier discussions that you actually had some other siblings before you were born.

FG: My two older brothers were born in Rock Springs in Wyoming, and then they both came to Seattle. And then at that time, I think, they were five years apart. I think the older one was about seven and then the younger one, Teddy, was about, would be about two years old.

LH: And this is in 1930.

FG: Yeah.

LH: Okay.

FG: And then my, the older brother -- in fact, I think they both did. They both went to Maryknoll school and on the way home, this is the older brother, on the way home he was getting off of the trolley and he was hit by a car between the trolley and the sidewalk, and he died, I think, a day after that. But then I still, now that brother I don't remember because this happened in 1932.

LH: So this was before you were born.

FG: Yeah, it was just before I was born. And then I had, the only brother I really remember sort of slightly is the second, the second oldest. And so when he was eight years old my father took him to Japan to become a Kibei.

LH: To be educated there.

FG: To be educated, right, and because then now he was the oldest son, but he unfortunately contracted pneumonia. He got pneumonia, but then when he was put in the hospital in Hiroshima, they didn't know what it was. And so they just kind of labeled it as tuberculosis and so they just let him lay there. What it was he had an infected mastoid so it just kept getting worse. I think it was as a result of the pneumonia and then had traveled to his ear. And then so when my mother heard about it, then she went to, number one, to take care of him and to see what she could do about bringing him back. And since I was only three years old I couldn't be left there so she took me with her and so I spent about six months in Japan living with my mother's family and my mother's mother and father and the children, which there were nine. It was a lot of fun.

LH: So, and then your mother went back to take care of your brother and then what happened?

FG: Well, they wouldn't release him. So one night my mother, I don't know just exactly how she did it, but she got it all set up and everything and she got, she took him out of the hospital. And then she already had the tickets for the boat back and so the three of us came back.

LH: So she was able to get him out of the hospital and take him, travel back to the United States with him.

FG: I think she said she was going to take him to see the grandmother or something like that I think.

LH: And that's how she got him out.

FG: I think so.

LH: So did he arrive safely in the United States?

FG: Well, he came back and then he was operated on, but it was too late and he just, the infection had just spread too far. And so he was nine years old when he died.

LH: This must have been pretty difficult for your mother because of all of things she had to do to go through.

FG: I think she had, like many Issei, I think she had a very, I think she had a hard life, but very cheerful and very positive, very up. It's surprising how some people can be in spite of all the things that happen, they can be positive and she was one of those. She never complained. It's a good model. [Laughs]

<End Segment 9> - Copyright © 1998 Densho. All Rights Reserved.