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AI: Excuse me, was the minister Japanese American, or was...?

EH: No, no. He was a Missourian, white, plain white Missourian. I had gone to, as a Sunday School teacher, they wanted us to take classes at McCormick Seminary, which was not that far away, but I guess I have to admit I don't think I met any other minority people in that period in that kind of setting. When I went to work, it was something very different. I was surrounded by a mix of people. And so you find that if you do that kind of activity, you're really in almost two different worlds, you have to adjust yourself to. But Ralph would come over for dinner once in a while, and I know once he said, "Can I go turn those lights off?" And he just got up and started turning lights off in the bedroom and the kitchen, and my sixteen-year-old sister -- the one that had an amputated leg -- said, "You cut that out." And Ralph just stopped and looked at her, and she said, "You're just trying to impress my mother." And that was that, and then that kind of stuck with my mother, despite Anna saying that, 'cause thrifty people always, my mother attracted, was very (attracted to) or she approved. But she didn't really have any problems with Ralph.

And she took it upon herself one day -- I didn't know this until years later -- she had gone to see his folks. And I don't, they were way out in the housing projects somewhere. The other thing she did was she had a black friend in a ladies garment worker factory somewhere, Mrs. Jackson, and she had gone to Mrs. Jackson's home a number of times and had supper with her and that kind of -- I don't know where my sisters were. I mean, they didn't, they were in high school and they didn't need that kind of care. But she did say, "Mrs. Jackson is worried about your seeing Ralph." And I said, "Did you tell her what kind of person he was?" That he was going to Northwestern and, and all that. And she said, "(Yes)." And I said, "What did she say?" And she said, "She said, she said you don't know the black world." Or some such thing, she said to my mother. And so my mother just let it go at that. And at some point, I can't, I think one of my sisters went with her, but I was astounded that she found that housing project and went clear out there. But my mother's like that. She has to, she's not just nosy, she has to really see for herself, and approve or disapprove. But she didn't, she never had that kind of problem.

Years later, when we would come every summer to visit, because both the grandparents were here, we were going to Charles's house when he was, I guess he was, he was still a meatpackers, vice president kind of position. And Charles had visited us for dinner, so my mother says, "I'm going with you." And I said, "Mom, Charles didn't say you could come." She, "Oh, he won't care. I'll come." And then on the way driving there, she says, "Turn here." And I said, "Mom, we're going to Charles's house, and we're (going to) be late. What, what are you going to do?" And she said, "I want So-and-so to come with, with us." And this was a Mrs. Saito, who she knew in camp. And her son was a Methodist minister, I think, by then. Anyway, we had to stop and pick Mrs. Saito up. [Laughs] And I said, "You realize that you, you're two lady, ladies that weren't invited to dinner and you're, you're (going to) force us to take you." And she says to Mrs. Saito, "Ii ne." "That's all right," is almost what she's saying. And Charles, of course, greeted her. 'Cause it's a novelty for her, for blacks, also, to have somebody else of another color. And I think he enjoyed my mother. I, he must have met my mother once or twice before. But that's the way my mother was. More times when I'm traveling with her, she, she suddenly wants us to go here and go there and I said, "Did you call them?" "No, that's all right, we can go."

AI: Well, I'm interested that, what your mother said about Mrs. Jackson's words, her friend's words, that, that you, Elaine, didn't "know the black world." And I was wondering, what did you think? What, did you have some insight into the black world at that time?

EH: Well, you know, I'd been working with probably a dozen people at the Julius Rosenwald fund, and we, I went to a couple of parties. Once in a while Ralph would want to go hear somebody, Mahalia Jackson or somebody like that, and I'm not really into that kind of jazz and concert world, but I would go and, you know, it's crowded and noisy but not anything that you can't tolerate. And where, when we were in parties, we'd make sure that we got out of there in a decent time, and we, we didn't have a car, so we always had to take the elevated. But Mrs. Jackson was a teacher at one time, so was my mother. So they found that common ground, and I think my mother probably would approve or take to anybody who was a teacher, because she just stereotypes that they're a certain value and personality. And they both agree that teachers don't get paid enough, no matter where they're teaching. You know, that kind of issue.

AI: Well, would you say that, would you think that your mother was somewhat unusual for an Issei who, to develop a friendship with a black person, and then also to be so accepting of, of Ralph as a, a black dating you at that time?

EH: (Yes), I mean, she, she is unusual to that extent. She likes to venture out, she likes to see the broader world. She was that way in Sacramento, too. In grammar school PTA, she was, she would get involved with kids that were stealing or were hungry, and we had a friend who had a particular kid always going through her garbage cans or stealing things, and my mother would... Mrs. Kitano? Kitsuno? I forgot, would tell my mother, my mother promptly took the story to the principal's office and said, "This boy is hungry." And I don't know what the principal could do about it, but, you know, in the Depression years, there were a lot of kids in that state. But (yes), she... sometimes she was a problem because she would say, "I'm (going to) go, too. I'm going with you." And I, I wouldn't let her go if we were going to some special social occasion. But within the family -- and I knew that Ralph's family would always accept her.

In fact, years later, and I think maybe it was in the '50s, late '50s, she came to visit us before I, we had Mark. And she came by train, and we knew she was coming, we picked her up, and I think, I think it was Ralph's mother that told me, "You know," she said, "you know how I got here?" I said, "Well, by train. We picked you up." And she says, she said, "Well, I couldn't afford the train ticket. Your mother paid for it." And she said, "Your mom came over one day, and said, 'You go see the kids.'" And she plopped the fifty dollar bill in her hands. That's what, I suppose that's what a round-trip fare was at that time. And for Ralph's mother, that was a big trip. She had never been on the West Coast. And, and said when the train was climbing through the mountains, she said she never would have gotten on that train if she knew she was (going to) be that close to, to the edge of cliffs. She said it was scary, but she enjoyed it. We, we found an old trunk for her to take a lot of neighbors apples and fruit that way, and she really treasured those, that fruit, because I, she probably couldn't afford to buy a lot of it, she was always, she always had grandkids around. You know, I forgot, I think on that trip, I think she told us she had fifty-five grandchildren. [Laughs] Something like that and I, I wasn't (going to) try to figure out or count. But taking those Golden Delicious was a big, big thing for her.

<End Segment 56> - Copyright © 2004 Densho. All Rights Reserved.