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AI: Well, now, I was, wanted to ask you about your ideas about getting married because as I understand, some people tell me that even for some Nisei, their parents wanted to arrange a marriage and have a more Japanese-style marriage.

MF: Well, I married a first-generation. He was married before. And he had two -- three, three children. They were all in Japan now. And, well, it was our family's friend that I married.

AI: And what was his name?

MF: Fukui, William Fukui. And we were -- my father and mother and he was in the same kind of business, dry cleaning business. So...

AI: So you had known him already --

MF: Oh yes.

AI: -- for many years.

MF: Oh yes. When his wife was ill with brain tumor there wasn't very much they could do with her. She became blind and she was ill for about six months and she was in the hospital, General, Seattle General for about two months and she was totally blind and left three children. And the youngest one was only about three, and then the next one was six and the oldest daughter was nine. She was in Japan and I guess the mother took the children to visit their grandparents and left the children there planning to go back very soon, I think. And she passed away with brain tumor and so I took care of their children for a while. And then the mother's sister wrote and said, "Bring the children back to Japan, I will raise them." So Bill took them back and she didn't, never had children so she -- I think the children had a very hard time with their new aunt, new mother.

AI: Oh, that's sad.

MF: It's kinda sad. But they're fine and they all have grandchildren now. [Laughs]

AI: Now, when you and Bill became engaged, this was not an arrangement, your parents did not arrange that, did they?

MF: Oh, no.

AI: Well, what was your parents' thinking about your getting married?

MF: They didn't like it very much. See, I being the oldest and then never married before and married a man that is a widow -- widow -- -er, -er isn't it? Widower? They didn't like it. But he was a wonderful man. I don't think we ever fought. You know, going to bed without speaking. And my mother said, "Gee," she said, "Well, we didn't think you gonna last you six months but it lasted forty-nine years." [Laughs]

AI: When was it that you and Bill were married?

MF: '36.

AI: 19 --

MF: May 24th, '36. He was a wonderful, very compassionate person. Never spoke ill about anybody and be kind to people, and afterward my mother said, "You should be like Bill." [Laughs] I was sort of a naughty girl.

AI: What makes you say that?

MF: Well, I sometimes criticize people and that's not right. But my mother forgave me. She said, "You married a fine man."

AI: Well, in 1936, you would have been about twenty-four years old --

MF: Uh-huh.

AI: -- when you got married. And as you say, Bill was already in the dry cleaning business.

MF: Oh yes.

AI: So then, after you married, then did you also work in the business with him?

MF: Uh-huh. Yeah.

AI: And where was that, that you were living then?

MF: That was in Montlake.

AI: I think you mentioned, was it the name of his, the business was Montlake Cleaners?

MF: Uh-huh.

AI: Well, could you tell me a little bit about that, again for people who don't know what the dry cleaning business was like at that time? What would be -- your customers would come and what types of service would you provide?

MF: Well, my husband did all the pressing and I did all the alterations and, oh, did the hand ironing. And then I had a girl that did the seamstress, you know, repairing. She used to come in 10 o'clock in the morning and leave about 3:00. So when she came home her children would be home from school. And I had her for eleven years, I think. And she was a neighbor. She lived only about four or five blocks from where, Montlake.

AI: And where were you living at that time, when you had the Montlake Cleaners?

MF: Oh, we had a -- lived in a duplex, just about a block from the shop.

AI: So it was very close by.

MF: Very close.

<End Segment 13> - Copyright © 2002 Densho. All Rights Reserved.