<Begin Segment 9>

TK: I'm wondering about your family in terms of, do you have any stories about your -- from your mother's and father's about, your mother and father, about how you might live your life? Did they give you any kind of examples of, of what they thought was important in terms of values that you should have or the family should have?

MT: Really, not too much that.... in that sense. But if I may, I would like to go back to my brother, reason that Dr. Taylor was so close to him is when Mother had the grocery store on the east side of Kent, every Fourth of July Dad used to bring all the firecrackers from Japan. And for Fourth of July for the city of Kent he did all the fireworks. And, but, like a five-year-old kid, my brother had lot of hakujin friends, Caucasian friends that he went to school with. And they, of course, they had their grocery store there. They'd get him to bring some candy out and firecrackers and things like that. But one day they asked him to bring the firecrackers out and they lit 'em up there and all of 'em lit and went off except one and so instead of these hakujin kids go lookin' at it, they said "Well, Hiroo, you go look at it." And so he went, went over there and just as he looked over, it exploded and it burned his face completely and so Mother told my brother to call Dr. Taylor. Dr. Taylor had a mansion on the east hill there, beautiful home up there. And he had a Japanese gardener, Japanese cook, and a Japanese fishing pond and everything.

But to back up a little bit, just before that... my brother just loved to fish ever since he was a little kid and Mother always worried about him because he'd go down to the river and the creek and go fishing. But what happened is my brother went up to Dr. Taylor, it was probably about five blocks from there and then up the hill, and his mansion was up on the hill there. But my brother loved fish so much that he went up there to Dr. Taylor's fish pond and, like I mentioned, Dr. Taylor had these, a cook from Japan, a lady cook and the husband did all the gardening. So they brought all these koi from Japan, beautiful kois and had them in this fish pond. My brother, about five years old, went up there and he fished 'em all out of there -- [laughs] -- and he was coming down the road and Dr. Taylor came back from the Auburn Hospital and you can imagine what happened about that time. So Dr. Taylor, when my brother called and said that he got burned with this firecracker, Dr. Taylor said, "Well anybody that takes my fish like that is not, will have to walk up to my place and I'll take care of him but I'm not coming down to the grocery store to take care of you." So my brother -- Mother always told us how my brother had to walk up all the way up to Dr. Taylor's up the hill and then Dr. Taylor took care of him. But that's how he became very close to Dr. Taylor. And Dr. Taylor took care of him immediately and there was no scar or anything from that firecracker burn, that burned his face there.

In fact, when Dr. Taylor finally died, we were still living on the west side of Kent but the only one that Dr. Taylor asked his wife is to call -- we didn't have a telephone, but the creamery was across the street from us so he called the creamery and had my brother, contacted my brother and said, "Dr. Taylor is dying so would you please come?" And so my brother walked over to the east hill from the west side of Kent and when Dr. Taylor died he was the only one that was with Dr. Taylor. And so, that closeness between the fishing incident and the firecracker and the accident, his operation, brought Dr. Taylor and my brother Hiroo very, very close and --

TI: So I want to make sure I understand. So, originally because your brother fished all the koi out, Dr. Taylor didn't like him. He, he was actually very upset.

MT: I imagine he was --

TI: And when he was burned, he said, he actually was kind of mean and made him actually walk to his place.

MT: Uh-huh.

TI: But then, during the treatment they, they became close? I mean, why do you think it was during that time that they got close?

MT: Well, no, I think Dr. Taylor, as much as he's upset because these, the fish all were brought in from Japan on a Japanese ship, I'm sure he was upset, but he knew a five-year-old kid wasn't just intentionally doing it. So it's... I think the friendship was started at that time, the high closeness was at that time so, out of -- he didn't, I don't think he thought my brother's face was burnt that long. I think he just thought, like you, like we do, you used to have firecrackers in the hand and it cracks and things like that. So he didn't realize that it was that serious. So I think just to teach him a lesson he said, "You have to walk up to my place to, to be treated." And so, but that's, I think when he fished those fish out and he had 'em on the string and he had about six of 'em and he was walking down the road when Dr. Taylor came back -- [laughs] -- it was quite a story and Mother mentioned it many, many times. Until he died my brother always, he had a farm over there at Payette, Idaho after camp, but he fished every day on the Snake River. He bought a little ranch on the Snake River there. But from that time, from that time on, all, he just loved fishing. But he never come home, he'd just fish and Mother would just have to worry. He'd go down to the river and fish and Mother, he'd come home late at night and she's scared and everything like that.

<End Segment 9> - Copyright © 2003 Densho. All Rights Reserved.