<Begin Segment 4>

AI: And where were you living at that time, when you were going to B.F. Day?

MF: Oh, B.F. Day? I was living on Forty-, Forty-first and Fremont Avenue. My father had a dry cleaning shop there, and we lived upstairs and the shop was downstairs.

AI: Did you have any jobs or responsibilities to help out with the shop?

MF: Well...

AI: As a child, I mean.

MF: I don't know how old I was, but my mother's father was very ill in Japan, so during the summertime, that three months that we had, I helped my father do some sewing and oh, she told me how to put the zipper in the pants, and how to put new pockets in the trouser and things like that. And it worked out okay. And she was gone for about three months.

AI: And while she was gone, did you also have to take care of the home and your --

MF: Yeah, I had to cook.

AI: -- younger sister and brothers?

MF: Yeah, 'cause I had four other brothers and sister, one sister and three brothers.

AI: So you really had to take over the responsibility --

MF: Oh, yeah.

AI: -- while she was gone?

MF: Uh-huh.

AI: Well, I think you had mentioned to me earlier that you were at B.F. Day until 1926? That's when you graduated from eighth grade?

MF: I kinda think -- well, I graduated in 1930 from high school now, so what...

AI: So that sounds about right.

MF: Comes about right? Four, eight years and then four years of high school, Lincoln High School.

AI: Right.

MF: I think I was the second Japanese to go there.

AI: To Lincoln High School?

MF: Uh-huh. Because I think George Yamaoka went to Lincoln and I think I was the second one, and then my sister and my three brothers.

AI: Well, now, in those days, graduating from the eighth grade was very special, kind of a special important occasion. How was it for you? That your eighth grade --

MF: Oh yes. I remember making my own graduation dress and oh, I should've looked it up 'cause I have a picture of my dress that I made. Gee, it was... it was a yellow chiffon dress and I had a picture taken at a studio and it was, it must have been long because it was kinda tight fitting and kind of a flared dress and it looked so pretty on me 'cause the flare looked so graceful.

AI: And so --

MF: And they made me sit on a piano bench and it looked like, the dress kinda was long and it wasn't down to the floor, but I think it was about there, and the dress kinda flowed and oh gosh, it looked real nice. [Laughs]

AI: Well --

MF: But you know I made it.

AI: In the eighth grade?

MF: Eighth grade.

AI: So you already were a dressmaker?

MF: My mother was a seamstress. So I learned from her.

AI: That's right.

MF: Yeah.

<End Segment 4> - Copyright © 2002 Densho. All Rights Reserved.