Densho Digital Archive
Densho Visual History Collection
Title: Emery Brooks Andrews Interview
Narrator: Emery Brooks Andrews
Interviewer: Tom Ikeda
Location: Seattle, Washington
Date: March 24, 2004
Densho ID: denshovh-aemery-01-0002

<Begin Segment 2>

TI: Let's talk about your mother. What was her name and where and when was she born?

EBA: Mother was born in 1895 in... I have to think about it... in Ohio, in Boone -- I'm sorry, Boone, Iowa; she was born in Boone, Iowa. And she had a, she actually had a middle name but she never liked to use it. I think she didn't like that name. Her middle name was Magdalene. So it was Mary Magdalene Brooks. And she never liked that. And after I came along, all the years that I've, was with her, she never used that name or even made a reference to it. She would always sign her name as Mary B. Andrews, the "B" for Brooks. But she never used that middle name.

TI: Did you ever ask her why? Or do you have a sense why?

EBA: Well, you know, I didn't discover this until a few years after she died. And so it was, it was a surprise to me.

TI: Do you, knowing your mom, or what you know of your mom, do you have a sense why she didn't use that?

EBA: You know, the only -- and maybe this is really stretching it, or reaching too far -- but in the scriptures Mary Magdalene had the reputation of a prostitute. And so, maybe she connected that name with the scriptures and didn't want that as part of her name. Otherwise, I have no idea. [Laughs]

TI: That's interesting. So, okay, 1895, Boone, Iowa, and then, how about your father, your father's name and when and where was he born?

EBA: Right. His name, his full name is Emery Eggleston Andrews. Eggleston is another family name that goes back to England. I'm not sure how far back that goes. He was born in Albion, Nebraska. And in reading some of his papers and so forth, when he was two years old they moved out to California. And I don't know what precipitated that move but they were farmers and maybe they thought California was the golden state and they would make their stake there. But...

TI: So he was born in 1894, so two, so this is like 1896 around, he goes to --

EBA: Right, exactly.

TI: -- to a farm in California.

EBA: Right, exactly.

TI: And then, so how did he get involved with the Baptist Church?

EBA: You know, when he was in California he went to Berkeley Baptist Divinity School. And he just, as part of his studies, I assume, he started working with minority groups, Chinese, and the Hispanic in California. And it was, I assume, just a call upon his heart to do that, to work with minorities. And so that's what he did.

<End Segment 2> - Copyright © 2004 Densho. All Rights Reserved.