<Begin Segment 48>

DG: Did you have quite a few patients at the old Keiro?

RI: Oh yes, at the old Keiro? Yes.

DG: On Massachusetts?

RI: Uh-huh. Let's see, the old Keiro had how many patients? Was it more like fifty or sixty? I probably had about almost half, half of 'em were my patients.

DG: So it was sort of a natural transition, then, for you to think about building the new one?

RI: Uh-huh. Well, the new one wasn't exactly my idea. Maybe the first one was more... I might have been more involved into helping to get that.

DG: Okay, that's what I was wondering.

RI: But the second one was just because the old one was too small. So the second one probably didn't have any problem trying to get approval from the community, it was mostly money-raising because they wanted to...

DG: Well, let's back up. You were saying that your husband wanted to build a hospital, and so that was before the old one was built, or, I mean, established?

RI: I think so. I'm getting all my time mixed up, too. But I, I think that we were more involved property-wise with the new nursing home.

DG: Right. But as far as establishing the nursing home, you were more involved with the old one?

RI: The first one. Yeah.

DG: Right. That's what I was wondering.

RI: So I don't... yes, that's right.

DG: So, so you were, it's the same people, though, that organized to buy that first property?

RI: The first property, well, many of them are deceased now. But the first property was renovating an old -- I think it used to be an old, could have been an old nursing home that was empty. And I think the property was bought. And most of the renovating was done by volunteers, painting it and refurbishing it for, for the, was it sixty-bed? But it soon became apparent that it was too small, not, not enough room, a long waiting list. So...

DG: So, did that come out of your understanding of the needs as you were visiting the different nursing homes? Is that...

RI: Oh, I'm sure. I don't think I was the one who started anything like that. I think the needs were felt by many people who had parents here and there in different homes. And there were other doctors, too. Well, Dr. Uyeno was pretty active in those days, too. Not, not many other Japanese doctors. Dr. Egashira was in practice pretty short time because he had a bad accident.

DG: I guess I'm trying to establish who approached who. Because I...

RI: I think, in the beginning I was not the instigator for a nursing home. I think they were community leaders who decided that there was a need for a nursing home essentially for Japanese people. So they were, there were several people. I think Tosh Okamoto was one of the leaders, I'm sure, because I remember going to a meeting down at Vet's Hall, I think, about needing, the need for a nursing home. So he recruited several other people to help and I know that I must've had some input in it because...

DG: Were you, were you already thinking in terms of you had the property here at that time, or were you still negotiating for properties with your husband at... what is the timing on that?

RI: Oh, the old... well, I think that our, our office building was in the 1960s, so later in the 1960s is when we were buying property. And then, the first nursing home, the old Keiro started like about 1975. So in-between times we might have been working on a possible nursing home. And by then, maybe our interest was transferred to the bigger property by Yesler, Yesler and Seventeenth. And since we had the property, then when the old Keiro became too small they started to look for areas that would be suitable for a bigger nursing home, and that's when they contacted us about property there. So it came few years later, huh?

DG: So was your husband enthused about this idea, also?

RI: Well, I think he's always enthused about lot of projects that he'd like to do. But I always said that, criticized him in that he gets enthused about projects, but he himself doesn't do a lot of the work. He expects other people to do it. But I better quit on that, because I don't want to blame him for everything. But then, at least what I would say is that when we were ready to give our office building to Nikkei Concerns, he didn't put up much object, objection to that. So because he okayed my giving the building to Nikkei Concerns I'll be grateful to him. Maybe at first it was called a charitable remainder trust we established. And this is before he got ill, so it might've been about three years before he died, and at that that time the trust was set up so that when both of us dies, then the building will go to Nikkei Concerns. But two years ago when he died I said, "I don't want to be responsible for that building," so I wanted to change that trust to actual donation to Nikkei Concerns and since it only involved me it was easier to just give it away. Because as long as he was alive he was interested in getting a little income from that building since we were both retired, so, which was normal. But after he was gone I decided that I don't need the income, I don't need the responsibility to take care of the building. So, I'm just hoping that that building will be used to benefit the community and I hope that Nikkei Concerns would use it for something like a... I was talking to Katherine the other day and she and Lillian Hayashi are thinking that maybe they'd like to establish a center where people could drop in and, and either exercise, maybe a wellness center, or play cards, or have a cup of coffee, or something like that, a drop-in place where our office used to be on the ground level, which is facing Sixteenth Avenue. But the upstairs is rented fully so that it be-, it's still an income property, like Dr. Toda and then the Shiatsu people are there.

<End Segment 48> - Copyright © 2003 Densho. All Rights Reserved.