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AI: But I did want to ask you, another thing that you were able to do is that you were able to go back and visit Japan a few more times. And I wanted to ask you a little bit about going back in your more recent trips.

MF: Oh, the last trip we took was with David was in 1988. That was, I told everybody there that it'd be my last trip. So I had beautiful jewelry that my husband, he always wanted me to wear the finest things that he could afford. And I had some beautiful jewelrys and I had about five or six pearls that, Mikimoto pearls that every anniversary or something like that he'd give me a long one and a short one and the double ones and so all my relatives have something of mine and it was for my cousin or my great-aunt or something like that. And the last trip was with David and I knew this would be my last trip being, getting older and so it was kinda sad to say goodbye to them. I, I have a lot of cousins. Lady cousins and during, during the hard wartime my mother used to send a lot of clothes to them. And they said they were the best-dressed girls in the school during that time and they wanted to thank me and they gave me a beautiful, a wonderful and a delicious dinner where there was about twelve cousins of mine and I didn't even know their names or anything but we got together. We went to this Japanese place and very formal place and had dinner. And then they said, "Well, we didn't know what to give you," so they all gave me an envelope and when I came home I took it to the bank and they gave me three thousand dollars, about twelve girls. And so Bill and I decided that Japanese people like designer's things so we went to the Magnin's and bought a designer's scarf that cost about, oh, about twenty-five or thirty dollars each and sent each of them a scarf and they wrote back and said, "We're the best-dressed women in our community." [Laughs] I never spent that kind of money on a scarf but Bill said, "Why, they were kind enough to do that nice things for you so you remember them and you're not gonna go back anyway," so I hope they're using it. [Laughs]

<End Segment 39> - Copyright © 2002 Densho. All Rights Reserved.