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AI: Well, let me, let me take you back to something that you said just a little bit ago about your parents and, and that they had gotten involved with the Presbyterian church quite early on in their time together. And I was wondering, were they Christians in Japan before they came?

EH: No.

AI: Or --

EH: My father, in his youth and his schooling, going to school, whatever... and I think that's probably true wherever, at least Japanese were a gathering place, that church took a center line. And so he be-, he probably joined the church maybe in San Francisco, and so he becomes fairly regular... even when, even if they were schoolboys, I think most American families went to church, and, and if you were welcome or able, though in early '20s, and maybe into '30s, there were -- Protestant missionaries, wherever they were, liked to set up English schools or English classes, and they would come into the ethnic churches. In Sacramento at the, at the Methodist church, there was a woman, a Mrs. Cowen, who was also a fifth grade teacher at Lincoln School, and another woman who was at the Baptist church. And they always became advisors or they participated in the Christian conference, at least the high school/junior high group. So it wasn't difficult to become a, a Protestant if you were in America. My mother probably picked it up along with my father.

In Chico I don't know that she understood that much English, though I do remember my... taking a ride, taking my mother to an English class. And it seemed to me it was out a distance, and I know that Chico State College built a new campus away from that central downtown campus, so that's probably what she did. But my mother also had a limited amount of English ability. I mean, she was reading... when I was in, when I was in, let's see... we moved to a house across the street when I was nine, so I must have been eight, maybe. Maybe eight or nine. I came home one day and she was reading -- what's the magazine with the word "journal" in it?

AI: Ladies Home?

EH: Ladies Home Journal. She was reading a, an article about Booker -- not Booker T. Washington Carver?

AI: George Washington Carver?

EH: George Washington Carver. And she had tears in her eyes. And I said, "Is it really that sad?" And so she told me about George Washington Carver and the struggle he had. I think he graduated from some Midwestern college, Iowa or Nebraska. I think it was Iowa. And... but he was not able to live in the dormitory. He had to live in a shack off campus. And he earned his living by ironing shirts of the other male scholars. But it went on and on. But... so my mother was reading American magazines from an early, early time. And even in camp, I was eighteen and probably not reading them. Most of us didn't read magazines like that until we were maybe in college or married. My mother would, was taking... she continued to take Ladies Home Journal in camp, and my friends, my older friends would say, "Wow. Are you reading these magazines already?" And I'd say, "No, my mother reads them." And they would be startled. But one... I remember that in the Ladies Home Journal, an article came out about the "Rape of Nanking" and my mother would not believe that. "Gee, the Japanese soldiers would never do things like that." And, and I'd say, "Mom, any soldiers." And you know, I said, "You know, the Japanese samurai psyche is brutal and they think they're better than everybody else. They're going to do things like that." But I left it at that, and... but she would read, she would read everything she could get her hands on. We used to have trouble with our mail, because she would get into our letters. When, when I got married, even before... maybe before I got married, we would take great care to hide or take our letters with, with me.

When we, when, after I had four kids and with my husband was on sabbatical at Berkeley, we... she wanted to, she wanted us to rent her house because she, my stepfather had died and she didn't want to be in that house. So we didn't want to stay there because it was too small for four kids. But anyway, we did. But every time we took a weekend trip I had to take my shoebox full of bills and mails with me in the car, because she would get into it. And she would, her, her reply would always be, "I'm the mother. I have to know." Or, "It's my responsibility to know." My, one of my sisters would just... Martha just broke out in tears because she would be so furious. Her, her going-to-be-husband would write to her whenever she, Martha lived with us one summer in Chicago, and my mother got a hold of the letter, and my sister was so mad she was ready to leave right then and there. "I'm going back to Yoshi. You, you're so... he's much more sensitive than you are," she said. Oh, but my mother was always saying, "It's my responsibility."

And I, once Ralph had, she called at seven o'clock on Sunday morning and she says, "Baka da ne." I don't know whether you know what "baka" means. It means "fool" or something. And I... my reaction was, "Don't call on a Sunday morning with a greeting like that." And, and I just kind of ranted at her. And Ralph said, "Let me have the telephone." So he talked to her. One of our kids were having a diarrhea problem or something and she was lambasting me for it, but Ralph took the telephone. And then I can't remember whether he got his... whether it was a BA or an MA, but anyway, she sent a check to him saying "to the Martin Luther (...) of the family." And she signed it, a seventy-five dollar check. [Laughs] And you know, what... he went to the bank and said, explained the whole story and said, "Do you want me to send it back to her to put my name on it?" And, and the bank teller said, "No, I believe you. I've never heard a story like that. It had to be just for you." And so... but that's the way she was. Always opening somebody else's mail.

<End Segment 10> - Copyright © 2004 Densho. All Rights Reserved.