<Begin Segment 26>

TK: Mr. Tsubota, soldiers often get passes... that we have, we live for passes at times, so you must have gotten something. Did something interesting happen on some of the times you took passes during the army?

MT: Yeah, I think that a big change in my life came as I was able to get a pass at Fort Bliss there. And, but, my mother wrote me that my cousin, Fred Taniguchi, married and is in Utah and is operating the Price Cafe, so to be sure, if I got a pass, to, to go to Utah and visit with him. So I got my pass and took the bus all the way up into Salt Lake and stayed at the Colonial Hotel there and I went down to look for the Price Cafe and nobody heard of a Price Cafe there. But, so anyway, I went to a Japanese cafe there called U.S. Cafe there and I had breakfast there and I tell 'em I'm looking for Price Cafe and they said, "Oh, no, the Price Cafe is 125 miles back towards Denver." And so, so I stayed there a few days and then I took a bus down to Price Cafe to meet my cousin Fred. And he was married to Cherrie's older sister (...).

TK: Cherry Kin...

MT: Cherrie is my sister -- no, my wife, C-H-E-R-R-I-E.

TK: Yes, okay.

MT: And she was one, of the three girls, she was the middle daughter. And so, it was very fortunate because I got into, to Price and met my cousin. He was operating the restaurant there. And we got to visit and, for a day or two and before I came on back. But I didn't know that Cherrie was there, but I was introduced to her and met her and we talked and we visited. And I thought oh boy, this is... I, and then, I, so the next day, night after next day, I had to come back to Fort Bliss and so Cherrie and I corresponded and we hit it off very, very good. And that was August of 19-, 1940.

TK: August of 19...

MT: (1942), yeah, uh-huh.

TK: '41, okay.

MT: Yeah, August of 1941. And so we corresponded and --

TK: Excuse me. It couldn't be August '41 because this, 41 is before December 7th. So maybe...

MT: No, it was August ('42) because I went from Fort Bliss to Utah. And I met her. So, so it was August that I got that pass and I met her at that time.

TK: Okay, okay.

MT: Then I came back to Fort Bliss at that time and... but we corresponded and eventually we got to know each other very, very well and I proposed by mail to her --

TK: By mail?

MT: -- and telephone, uh-huh, and so the rest of the story is after that. After I got to Camp Shelby.

TK: Could you tell us more about maybe where her background is? Where was she born, and...

MT: Yeah. Cherrie, Cherrie is born and raised in that Carbon County and went to, went to elementary school in Helper Elementary School and high school, and into Price, finished high school in Price, Utah.

TK: All in Utah.

MT: Uh-huh. The family originally went from, came from Japan and her dad worked for the railroad. And then from the railroad he started the Price Cafe there and continued. And so, Cherrie was helping at the Price Cafe at that time. So, there was three sisters and Hiroko is married to Cousin Fred and Cherrie was the middle one and Toshiko, third daughter, was married while I was overseas, to a fellow named Akira Yoshihara. I believe he was in the Wyoming camp. And they came to Salt Lake and they were married there. So, but Cherrie's mother was... when I was at Camp Roberts, back in March of 1941, Fred came from Japan, from Hiroshima, and stayed with us at Kent and went to school a couple of years and then he went to the sawmill and worked there for a while and then to mining in Montana. Then he moved to Los Angeles and with the large markets in Los Angeles, I guess. And so, when I was in Camp Roberts, he got, he was to be married in Los Angeles. So, my mother, he invited me at Camp Roberts, my mother in Kent, to come down to his wedding in, at Los Angeles. He got married at the Los Angeles Buddhist Church.

<End Segment 26> - Copyright © 2003 Densho. All Rights Reserved.