<Begin Segment 19>

AI: And in the meantime, Jeni is a young child and you were still at this time thinking of having more children?

MY: Yeah, I had -- we were just so thrilled with Jen-, actually the reason why I, when I was in New York and my husband, when Jeni was about three -- I think it was kind of foolish in some way when you look back on it, because my health was not the best. I think we, after two miscarriages I... after I had Jeni, my health was fine. After Jeni we said, "Oh, gosh, it's just so wonderful, we have a baby. Let's have another one right away." And so I got pregnant right away, and it was just, the baby would have, that child would have been only -- like Tosh and me -- been just a year apart. But I miscarried that time and then I miscarried the second time, and I bled a lot, and I became quite anemic and that's why I lost my third son. He was born stillborn, and I lost a lot of blood then. And I was quite anemic. And when you're in a weakened condition and you kind of, I was very depressed and my husband was worried about that and he thought that I should kind of go back to, "Why don't you think about getting a Ph.D.?" And I said, "Oh, you know, that just sounds like another grueling thing." But I did enroll in the Ph.D. program in Linguistics at Columbia University and then I became pregnant with my older son. And then with the experience of the three lost, three miscarriages, we, I decided that I would drop out of school. So I became a dropout, and then, and I, the doctor ordered complete bed rest and so we hired somebody for a while to take care of Jeni, who was -- let me see, in first grade or so at that time, in kindergarten, I think. But it was a little bit hard and then my mom in the meantime was very lonely in Chicago after my dad's death. So we invited her to come out to New York, which was really great because my mother came, she needed to be needed, you know, and it was just a great match. She was a better housewife than I was, a better mother, you know, she took care of my children, she, and I, and then when I got a job, you know, several years later, she would get up in the morning and she would make their lunches and she would make my lunch, and she would make my coffee and she'd have all the laundry in the washing machine already, she'd be all dressed, and I'd take off to work. [Laughs] And she cleaned the house, the house was always spic and span, it was cleaner that it's ever been, you know, when I was cleaning house, so it was wonderful to have her there. And then because of her I think I became very much involved in outside activities and things like that. But it was wonderful having her. [Laughs]

AI: So, now was it after Stephen was born that you moved?

MY: We were, Stephen was born in New York, it was after the birth of my third -- the son that we lost that, oh, you mean how we moved to New York, when did we move to New York? We moved in 19... '55? Let's see, '55... well, actually we moved to California in 1960. And my two sons were born in New York City. And we were very, so happy to have a live child that we had another son, and so...

AI: So Stephen was born in 1957 --

MY: Yeah, and then Kai was born in 1959, and that was in New York, and Yosh was still in Chicago, working in Chicago. And so Yosh returns for a few days. When Kai was born he was still in Chicago. So he didn't know until the following day that he had another son. He came back for a few days to see the baby and then around 1960 his company was bought out by another company in Pasadena, and so we had to move in 1960 to California. I just reluctantly moved from New York City to California.

<End Segment 19> - Copyright © 2002 Densho. All Rights Reserved.