<Begin Segment 7>

TI: You mentioned your brother, Henry, and earlier you mentioned you could remember eight siblings. Let's talk a little bit about that. Why don't you sort of just go down the order of your siblings and sort of like, starting with the oldest and just kind of walk down, all the way to you.

MT: Well, like I mentioned previously, my oldest sister Haruko was born and raised in Japan. She never did come over here, but she married over there. I had two sisters that were born here, after Mother came from Japan and it was Sadako neesan and Yoshiko neesan that were the next two were born in addition to my brother Henry. And there was a brother named Masayoshi and a sister named Shizuko, she passed away and I had another sister, Yachiyo, that was ahead of me and myself. But Yoshiko and Sadako were sent to Japan to be raised by their grandma when they were about three years old and they stayed in Japan until about sixteen years old and they came back to Kent and helped us out on the farm at that time. So, that's my siblings.

TI: I guess a question... was about this time, as you were growing up, you talked about your dad building a sawmill, and it's a big investment. How, how did that business go?

MT: Well, the, a good part of it was he started this business enterprise. It seemed like it went pretty well because he was manufacturing lumber and railroad ties for the World War I war. And he was shipping railroad ties to Japan also at that time. But the minute the war ended, then we went into a deep depression and so we... he stopped the mill and became very much in debt. And this is where we went... started to go downhill as far as finances, health, and so...

TI: And about how old were you when this happened?

MT: I was born at the sawmill in the west side of Kent. So that'd be 1918 and so a lot of this I've heard from my mother and my father and the Issei people around us, that told me about it later as I grew up there. But the fact that he had, became very involved in debt was a big worry and a shock to my mother who, as I mentioned, was sort of comfortable in Japan and come to the United States and then Dad became, got stomach cancer after that and was ill for quite a few years.

<End Segment 7> - Copyright © 2003 Densho. All Rights Reserved.