Densho Digital Archive - Mitsuye May Yamada - Joe Yasutake - Tosh Yasutake Interview (denshovh-ymitsuye

<Begin Segment 9>

AI: Well, and in the meantime, Tosh, here you were also a very young child and --

TY: Yeah.

AI: -- what kind of memories do you have from your youngest years?

TY: Well, as we discussed, several times -- the first memory I have of my sister is when we were --

MY: In preschool.

TY: -- three and four, I guess --

MY: Uh-huh.

TY: -- huh? When we were in the nursery -- ran away from nursery? The Baptist Church nursery school with the --

MY: I think we were four and five, I think.

TY: And that's --

MY: That was when Mom started to work in that, in the Seattle Center -- Seattle market.

TY: Public Market.

MY: Yeah, she started work for the Arakis --

TY: Yeah, yeah.

MY: -- at the florist.

TY: In the florist stand in, in the Public Market. And so we were in this nursery school, and I talked May into running, running away from the nursery and going home during the day. And --

MY: They didn't miss us.

TY: Yeah. Yeah, nursery was on the west side of Jackson Street. And so we had to cross that very busy Jackson Street and then go a couple blocks, go back to go to our home. And --

JY: On Beacon Hill?

TY: Huh?

JY: On Beacon Hill?

TY: No, no, no. We were living in the --

MY: We were in Remington Court.

JY: Oh, okay. So you were a little closer, then.

TY: -- in the Remington Court house, then, yeah.

JY: I can't imagine you walking all the way home to Beacon Hill. Good grief.

TY: [Laughs] No. And, well, it wasn't really very far from the nursery day care center --

JY: Busy streets, though.

TY: -- whatever they called it. Pardon?

JY: Busy streets.

MY: It was the Baptist Church.

TY: Baptist Church. Japanese Baptist Church --

MY: It was the Japanese Baptist Church.

TY: -- nursery or whatever they called it then, I don't know.

MY: Was it day, it was a --

TY: Day care center or --

MY: -- kindergarten, yeah. We were both -- I was four and, five.

TY: What was it? Four and five?

MY: Yeah, because you had recovered pretty much by that time.

TY: Oh.

MY: Because you were ill, you know, from the --

TY: Yeah.

MY: Yeah, we, and then we ran away and, and it was... I can't imagine, you know. I'd look at my kids when, my grandchildren when they were three, four. It was two little kids a year apart, you know, walking down --

TY: We were walk --

MY: -- crossing this big -- I mean, nobody ever stopped us. [Laughs]

TY: Well, apparently we walked on, hand in hand, very casually, home. And we, when we got home -- well, no one was home, of course. And so we sat on the curb and waited for Mother to come home. And in the meantime a, a good friend of Dad's, who was I think staying with us, had come home a little early from wherever he was and found us there and went in our house. And Mother was just aghast after she heard that we had crossed the Jackson Street particularly, that we made it in one piece. [Laughs]

MY: And they, they called the school, and they didn't, hadn't missed us. [Laughs]

TY: Yeah. [Laughs]

MY: We were gone for the whole day.

TY: We were so well-behaved and so quiet, they didn't even notice us, I guess. [Laughs] But that's my first recollection of, of her, really.

AI: And then other early childhood memories of yours of perhaps when Mike --

TY: Well, I, then when -- I do remember -- I remember when my, my brother came back to the States, and he was seven. And so I must've been six. The first thing I remember about that is one morning I got up, and apparently for -- well, I was sleeping on a double bed, I think. And my guess is he came -- they went to pick him up, and it was real late. I don't remember going to the boat to pick him up or anything, so they must -- I don't remember --

MY: It was late at night, probably.

TY: Well, it was late at night, so I was already asleep. And he, they put him in my bed. And when I woke up in the morning, his head was leaning right against my shoulders. And I, I was going to push it away, whatever it was. And I, then I felt his head. And in Japan they used to just --

MY: Shave the --

TY: -- clip their heads real short, real, real short. And so he had a stubby hair. And that's the first thing I felt. I was just absolutely startled. I couldn't figure out what it was. [Laughs] And that's my first recollection of my older brother. [Laughs]

MY: That's funny.