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AI: Well, and then also, if you could tell about your mother, and about how your father and your mother got married?

BS: Oh, well, my grandfather... my dad was, well, in his mid-twenties, and my grandfather said, "I think it's time you get a wife." And in those days you had to, I guess you had to be married before the mate could come from Japan. And so lot of 'em were picture brides. But my dad was married, my mom and dad were married by proxy. But he chose my mom because he knew her as a child. But he would tell stories about his... my mother came from a family of beautiful, there were three beautiful women. My mother was the third. And he said that when he left Japan he was seventeen years old. He said that he eventually wanted to return to Japan and marry the oldest one. Well, he took too long so she married a doctor. And so he said okay, well, he'll get the second one. Well, he took a little bit too long and she married. [Laughs] And so he says, so then he said, well he had to take the "worst of the lot," he would say. [Laughs] But he would say that kiddingly. And so, when my grandfather told him that, "It's time for you to get married," then he said, "Who would you like?" And he would say, "Well," and my dad said my mother, 'cause he knew her, but she was seven years younger. So when he left Japan he was seventeen and she was ten. So, but, he knew her and so my grandfather, my grandfather went back to Japan and he asked for my mother's hand. But my mother was more or less promised to take care of an aunt who was, who had married, but since the family, the in-laws were so cruel to her, she left and came back to Okayama. And so they didn't have any children, so she was promised to take care of the aunt. And the aunt was a very strong woman and she had a very good business sense. And she ran a business, something to do with... I don't know if she was a hairdresser or what, but... and so, since she was promised to take care of the aunt, they said, "No, we can't let her go to the United States." And, but my grandfather was very persistent. And he kept going back and kept going back. And they said, "Well, we can't let this older man, we can't make him unhappy," so they finally allowed her to come. But my mother was willing to come because she said, as a child in grammar school, her teacher impressed on the children that, for the good of Japan -- because it's a small nation with a lot of people -- that to help the country you should immigrate from Japan and go to the United States or wherever. And she was impressed by that, so she was willing to go to the United States.

And when my husband and I went to visit Japan in 1984, and we met my mother's, two of my mother's sisters were still living. And they said that they were just amazed at the courage, that she had the courage to leave her family and homeland to go all the way to the United States, and you never know if you'd return again. And the younger, the younger sister... there were four sisters and there was one younger than my mother, several years younger. And she said, oh, she cried when my mother left. She says, because she said, "I'll never see her again," 'cause it seemed so far. But my mother was determined and when she, when she arrived, it was a shipload of, lot of picture brides. And it landed in Seattle, my dad went up to Seattle. And he had, he had been spraying in the apple -- I guess it was apple trees or pear trees. And it had... that was maybe a week or so before, and the spray had gotten on his face and then, then, being, being out in the sun his face got black, and then by the time my mother came to port in Seattle, his face was peeling, you know how you get sunburned and it was peeling? [Laughs] And so, when my mother got off the ship and she saw my father, she looked at him. And my father said, he says, "If you're unhappy by my appearance, it's okay if you want to go back to Japan." And she said, "No," she says, "because," she says, "I know what you look like," so, this didn't mean anything to her.

<End Segment 2> - Copyright © 2003 Densho. All Rights Reserved.