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SS: Tell me a little bit about growing up with sisters and brothers. Seems to me that with five kids in the family you could, you could fight like cats and dogs. Did you get along well? Did you fight?

EW: Oh, probably did. I don't know. I remember my sister was a good seamstress. And if we wanted a new dress, well, she was willing to make it, but we would have to do her share of the housework, cooking, and cleaning, and everything. She had us under her thumb, when we wanted her to sew for us.

SS: Were you the littlest sister?

EW: Yes.

SS: Tell me a little bit about your siblings, their names and how old they were.

EW: Well, there's Harry, and he's retired and he now lives in Florida. And he was an attorney. And I'm very proud of him because he was appointed by Magnuson and Jackson to serve on the Veterans... claims, I think, adjudicator. And he was in D.C. for quite a while, until his retirement. And then I have a sister, Michiko, who now lives in Auburn. And she, I'm very proud of her, too. She was named the queen of Auburn's, "Good Ol' Days" this year when she reached her eightieth birthday. And then there's Miyoko who lives in Redmond. And she and I are pretty close. And she graduated from the U.W., too, an English major. And then I have a younger brother, Calvin, who lives on Mercer Island and he was at the university, he taught graduate school, social work. He's very bright and active in JACL.

SS: What was it like being the littlest?

EW: Well, I think I got picked on. But then I in turn picked on my younger brother. So, we had our pecking order.

SS: Were girls expected to do more of the housework in those days?

EW: Oh yes.

SS: What was that like?

EW: Well, it doesn't take long to, to clean house if you put your mind to it. I think half of it is thinking about doing it and hating it, than getting down and actually doing it.

SS: Was it a big house? Was it a fancy house?

EW: Well, we lived in several houses, one was rambler type. Didn't take long to clean. One was a two-story, and get the dirt and push it downstairs. [Laughs] My mother wasn't that particular because she worked in the laundry and all she wanted was to keep it neat, and we managed to do that. And we learned to cook because she was working, and if we wanted to have dinner we were expected to cook.

SS: It sounds as if your older siblings were sort of surrogate parents to the younger ones?

EW: I think so.

SS: What was that like? Do you have pleasant memories of your siblings?

EW: Yes, I do. We are close. And I don't know, I can't remember any bad times. We all went to work, out to work. My brother went up to Alaska during the summer for the fishing. And he was gone quite a bit.

<End Segment 5> - Copyright © 1996 Densho. All Rights Reserved.