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AI: And in addition to your son you also have two daughters?

AO: Yes, we wanted to have a girl. And a girl wasn't coming, so we decided we heard about adopting babies from Japan. So we became in contact with Dr. Differgrado. And he was an attorney and he was determined to adopt, have people adopt at least, I think there was two hundred babies that he wanted to be involved in with adoption. So we corresponded with him. And he lived in Yokohama. He had a Portuguese name but he was Japanese. And so he found a girl baby, baby girl in Fukuoka and the girl was, I think, six months or eight months old. And he sent us the picture and we accepted. And so soon as we accepted we sent the money and then, as a deposit, that's what I believe. And then the girl was transferred from Fukuoka to Elizabeth Sanders Home in Yokohama. That's where all the babies or children that's gonna be adopted would be. And then about, it took, it took ten months. By the time that all the papers were all prepared, the name of the girl, we'd named her Charlene, and it was... well, Charlene was eighteen months by the time we received her. So we went down to the airport, picked her up and brought her home. We lived in La Puente at the time. And in order to qualify for the adoption, the, I guess the immigration office would come in and inspect your home. They also questioned the neighbors and we were, we qualified, so now we have Charlene, now living in Ohio with two children. And we're very happy with her.

AI: And then, and then you had your youngest daughter.

AO: Our youngest daughter came as soon as we adopted Charlene, and then Kimi became pregnant, then we had Patty and she was born December 5, 1963, and she's now forty-one. And she's a registered nurse at Los Angeles County Hospital. And she's been working there for going on fifteen years. So, we're happy with them.

AI: Well, I wanted to ask you about, as your children were growing up, and let's see, and your son's name is Eugene?

AO: Eugene, yes.

AI: Did, do you know if any of them ever faced any kind of prejudice or had any difficulty because they were Japanese American when they were kids growing up?

AO: I don't think so. We, our son Gene went to elementary school from kindergarten on in La Puente and he made friends with the kids there. And one of the parents of one of the boys that he made friends with was Larry Kaimer and his parents are our close friends even today. And so that's, I guess good fifty years. And our fiftieth anniversary, we invited them to our fiftieth anniversary dinner and that was April 2001 when we had our anniversary dinner. And we had the Kaimers there and the son. And then we made friends with a retired airline pilot that lived on Bainbridge Island and we made friends with him during the time that we owned a house on Sunrise Drive on Bainbridge Island. And we invited him to come to our anniversary dinner. We had a number of friends that we made.

AI: That's wonderful.

<End Segment 40> - Copyright © 2004 Densho. All Rights Reserved.