<Begin Segment 3>

TI: Well, I want to go to your mother now. How did it happen that she came to Seattle?

MH: Well, Dad went back to Japan to get her, and she said she didn't want to come. She was just sixteen, I think she was sixteen or seventeen. She didn't want to come, so she ran away and hid in the fields, but they got her. And she was almost forced to come, but it, eight children, it turned out to be a pretty good marriage. [Laughs]

TI: And how did your father know your mother? Was it an arranged marriage?

MH: Yeah, it was an arranged marriage, yeah, and it was in the same area, Nagasaki, I think.

TI: And how much older was your father than your...

MH: Thirteen years older.

TI: Okay, so she was sixteen, he was about twenty-nine.

MH: Right.

TI: Okay. Yeah, it must have been... oh, what's the right word? Really stepping into the unknown for your mother.

MH: Pardon?

TI: It must have been very, very difficult for your mother.

MH: Oh, yes.

TI: I mean, marrying someone who is...

MH: So much older.

TI: ...so much older, going to a new country.

MH: Exactly.

TI: I'm sure she was frightened.

MH: I'm sure she was. But my father was a very kind man, and, and the story goes that my mother -- none of us got it -- but my mother was a very beautiful woman, and so, and Japanese women were so scarce and rare here, that they ran her for some beauty contest, and they, the merchants did this, and she won that, so she has those nice stories to tell us. But she too had to go do housework, and she tells the story where she wanted to talk about, if we need some more eggs or something, she got on the floor and she, "Kaaaa," and then she said, you know -- [laughs] -- just pantomimed the whole thing, and said... and so that was the egg thing.

TI: Well, I'm not sure I understand. So she, she pantomimed to...

MH: A chicken laying an egg. She gets down on the floor, she's a chicken laying the egg, and then she gives this egg to the lady and that's supposed, she's telling her, "I need an egg."

TI: I see. So because she didn't speak English?

MH: She didn't speak English.

TI: So she was shopping and she wanted eggs, so she --

MH: Yeah, well, she -- no, she was trying to tell the lady that, "I need an egg. I want an egg," and so she went through the whole pantomime at the house. You know, she had cute little stories like that to tell.

TI: It sounds like your mother was very expressive. I mean, that doesn't --

MH: I guess so, I think so. [Laughs] I don't know.

TI: I'm curious; your father came from a very prosperous family, he was doing well in America, was there ever a thought that he would go back to Japan?

MH: I don't think he ever thought that. However, he did send money, and there is a place, there's a nice lake near his house, which he sent money to plant cherry trees, and it's just beautiful, all around the lake is, are my father's cherry trees there. So there's, you know, it's kind of nice to go back to Japan and see the things that my parents left, my father left. And my mother comes from a good family. As a matter of fact, I think my mother comes from a better family than my father, but she lived in, more in the city, Omura, and Dad lived in Kawatana, those are small towns. So my, my mother was brought up, I think she was spoiled.

TI: And what was your mother's name?

MH: Machiko. M-A-C-H-I-K-O.

TI: And her maiden name?

MH: Yatsugi.

<End Segment 3> - Copyright © 2004 Densho. All Rights Reserved.