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AI: Well, and then also during this same time, another difficult thing happened, which was that your, your older sister was still quite ill. And did she then return home?

PB: Yes.

AI: That, that following year in 1927?

PB: Her husband, she was getting worse because she wasn't getting the care. She's supposed to be in the hospital. She wasn't getting the care, so she wanted to come home, so she did come home. He dropped her off, and we never knew what happened to him after that, he just left her to my mother, and no support or nothing. He just dropped her off and disappeared.

AI: But you had heard somehow that she was returning back to the farm, to your parents?

PB: Well, he brought my sister home and then he disappeared, so we don't know what happened to him after that. So then my mother took care of my sister, and, of course, she had to be separated from the family, so by that time, I guess we didn't have any boys living in the "boy house," the one we called the "boy house." So she was out there, and we had ways of communicating between the two houses. Any time she needed her, and my mother took care of her.

AI: So during this time, were you able to go and visit Nellie?

PB: Once in a while my mother would let me talk to her, but not very often, because she didn't want me to get sick. But I did see her once in a while, and I talked to her. But she got progressively worse, and, of course, we didn't have any hope that she would live. We figured she would pass away eventually. My mother got, she turned gray just overnight. Her hair turned white from worry, and taking care of my sister. But she took care of her 'til she passed away.

AI: And, and that was that summer then, in July of 1927?

PB: Uh-huh. She died on the first day of July, and she would have been twenty on the 20th day of July. And, of course, I was pregnant then with my son, and she said, she predicted that I would have a boy. He was born on the 25th of July, five days after she, after her birthday, same month that she died, my son was born.

AI: Oh, my.

PB: At that time, I was staying with my mother-in-law in the basement of the Nippon Kan Hall. That's where my son was born. I didn't go to the hospital or anything, I had a midwife. And my husband was in Eatonville, he didn't even come in. So I just had a midwife and my mother-in-law.

AI: What did you name your son?

PB: Beg your pardon?

AI: What did you name your son?

PB: I named him Jimmy, and, of course, he was the first son, so my father-in-law had picked the name Hajime, "first."

AI: And so then for his English name, you called him Jimmy.

PB: I was, I named him after Jimmy Okimoto, who was a star baseball player at the time. I think he was with the Nippons or... I don't remember whether, there was the Taiyos and Nippon, I think, was the name of it. He was, actually, I named him "Jimmy," not "James," because I named him after Jimmy Okimoto, but now he goes under the name James.

AI: So you were living there below the Nippon Kan building, and, but as you say, you were not really getting along very well with your mother-in-law. So what did you do then at that point?

PB: Well, she accused me of just sleeping all the time. Well, I was supposed to have bed rest, you know, but anyhow, I think I was up the second day, and I was ironing clothes, and the midwife came and she said, "Oh, you can't be doing that, that's too heavy work, and you shouldn't be doing that." So then I got in an argument with my mother-in-law, so she didn't want me there, because she said I was just laying around and doing nothing. So I said, "Well, we're gonna go to Eatonville," and that's how we packed up and left for Eatonville.

<End Segment 14> - Copyright © 2004 Densho. All Rights Reserved.