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TI: Tell me about your mother, what was her name?

GH: My mother graduated from high school in Japan, and she came from a very well-to-do family. I don't, I don't see how she was able to find herself on the farm, but she did manage, she raised eight children, so... but she was, one thing that comes to mind is she was ambidextrous, and one day I saw her sewing, and she was sewing, and I knew there was something strange going on. So finally, I asked my mother and she says, "No," she explained to me that she was ambidextrous, so she would be sewing one, and then with the other hand she would come back. And she also told me that during high school, she was on the tennis team, and she did very well because being ambidextrous, she would hit with one hand, and... [laughs] with the other.

TI: Oh, so she didn't have a backhand, she just had two forehands?

GH: Right. [Laughs]

TI: Oh, that's interesting. So she was well-educated, so she went to high school, which was unusual for a woman.

GH: Right, at that...

TI: She seems athletic, ambidextrous, and came from a well-to-do family. When she came to the United States to marry your father, do you have a sense that they knew that they were going to stay in the United States, or was there a plan, do you think, to go back to Japan?

GH: Well, judging from the fact that they did not register, (we) were not dual citizens, I think in those days many people when their child was born, they would register with the consulate, and that's how they became dual citizens. In my case, I was not registered, so judging from that, I'm sure that Dad had intended to stay.

TI: Interesting. And I didn't get this, your mother's name was...?

GH: Midori.

TI: And --

GH: My father went by the name of Tom, and my mother went by the name of Grace.

TI: Do you know how they chose those names?

GH: No, I don't know.

TI: And you told me a little bit about her being well-educated, athletic, ambidextrous, but personality-wise, what was your mother like?

GH: Well, all I could say is I admire her raising eight children. [Laughs] And to this day, I don't know how she did it, but we all survived.

TI: So was she the disciplinarian? So when you guys got in trouble, was she the one who...

GH: Oh yes, uh-huh.

TI: ...who kept you in line?

GH: Yeah. [Laughs]

TI: So, let's talk about --

GH: But she was also a very gentle person, and she would, there was no spankings, but it was all words.

TI: And let's talk about your siblings. You said there were eight children?

GH: Yeah.

TI: So why don't we just kind of walk through the siblings, the birth order, in terms of the oldest to the youngest.

GH: The oldest is Martin.

TI: So Martin was number one.

GH: And then I'm number two.

TI: So Grant was number two.

GH: And Helen, who went by the name Kay, then Bill, Ruth, Sam, Dan, and Ted.

TI: And did all of them survive into adulthood?

GH: Yes.

TI: Wow, that's, that's good. And generally, how much age difference was there between you?

GH: There's three years' difference between my brother, with Martin. And others are two, except for Dan and Sam, one.

TI: Okay.

<End Segment 2> - Copyright © 2006 Densho. All Rights Reserved.