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AI: Well, and what about your mother's side of the family? Do you know much about her parents?

RS: I know a little bit. My mother, my mother's cousin, my mother was a Tanagi, and came from a very large family of nine siblings. Very interesting story on that side in that my grandmother, her name was Miki -- I don't remember her maiden name, but Tanagi was her married name -- she and her husband were born -- were, of course both born in Japan, and married in Japan. And they had four children, and left the four children with her parents and was never joined with them again, and never went back to America, until fifty years later when three of the four siblings had passed away from old age. The surviving one came to this country with her daughter and met her other five children that were born in this country, met them for the first time, and met her mother for the first time in fifty years. So that was an amazing story, which I understand wasn't that uncommon. Japanese people had slightly different feelings about having their parents raise babies. I mean, apparently this was -- at least at the time of immigration -- this was not so uncommon. Well, obviously it happened to an extent on my father's side as well, you know, where my grandmother left her newborn daughter to be raised by her mother for three years.

So, anyway, another interesting fact was that my grandfather, Tanagi, was also in the Japan-Russian war, and was an officer in the Japan Imperial Navy, I believe it was. So they were both, on both sides, were involved in that war. So, anyway, my mother had a total of nine siblings in that family. And --

AI: She was -- excuse me -- she was one of the five here in the U.S.

RS: Right.

AI: And so she had, was it three brothers here in the U.S.? And a...

RS: Yeah. She had, actually, actually... there were not four in Japan. There were three, and there were six here. It was Rik, Roy, and George Tanagi. And they were all commercial artists -- probably had the most to do with the fact that I became interested in art, 'cause they were my role models. And then there was an older brother, Johnny, and then there was my, my mom, and she had one sister, Sayo. And, you know, there was another one, too, the youngest one, that was called Nobu. And Nobu was always discussed among people, the older people, because he was this incredible athlete. And he was also a singer and he had this incredible operatic voice. But he also passed away in his twenties, of cancer. And I remember it was this great tragedy and everybody talked about Nobu. So anyway, so fifty years later, Chiyo, I believe was the sister's name that came to America with her daughter, Yoko, and Chiyo has since passed away as well as her brothers that were in Japan, but Yoko still survives. And Yoko has a daughter. So those are my only real relatives that are known to me.

AI: And excuse me, what was your mother's first name?

RS: Aya.

AI: Aya Tanagi.

<End Segment 4> - Copyright © 2003 Densho. All Rights Reserved.