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TI: And you mentioned they had eight children, you were the fifth, can you remember the names of all your siblings and the order?

MH: The oldest one was Setsu, and the second one is Ray, third one is Amy, fourth one is, his real name is Yonesaku. Y-O-N-E-S-A-K-U. I always called him Yone, and then me, May, and then there's Chikako, and then there's Keiko.

TI: That's seven. Is there a missing one? So you have Setsu, Ray...

MH: Did I leave -- oh, Kenji. Kenji is just below me.

TI: Okay.

MH: I'm sorry.

TI: And there were, so there were three boys and five --

MH: Two boys.

TI: Two boys, so Kenji and...

MH: Yonesaku.

TI: Yonesaku. And so you were sort of between the boys.

MH: Between the two boys, right.

TI: Okay.

MH: And my father almost gave me away, because he said he didn't want another girl, and he had promised a couple that was at the church, very lovely couple named Hayami-san. And he said, "If it's a girl, you can have her." And when I was born I was such a darling baby that -- [laughs] -- he couldn't give me up, and he reneged on his offer. But when I was older and went to Japan, I visited, visited this couple, and they treated me just like their own daughter.

TI: Oh, how touching.

MH: It was really nice. And they had adopted another girl in Japan. But my dad was funny. [Laughs]

TI: As, as you were growing up, and you watched your mother and father sort of interact, how would you describe their relationship?

MH: I think that there's very little emotion shown, but the things that Dad used to do for Mother, like buy her things and treat her well, I think there was a great deal of love and respect for each other, especially respect for each other. And I will always see in my mind my dad sitting on one side and my mother sitting, having breakfast together. They would get up on the bench, we had a cove, a breakfast cove with benches on two sides and the table in the middle, and they would put a cushion on the bench and they would eat Japanese-style, they'd have their breakfast there. That was one thing that Mother and Dad enjoyed, was after the children left home, all they could do that.

<End Segment 4> - Copyright © 2004 Densho. All Rights Reserved.