<Begin Segment 33>

TI: So eventually, as you got settled more and more, you moved out of your in-laws' house.

HH: Yes.

TI: So where did you settle? Where did you go live?

HH: What do you mean by that?

TI: So, I mean, I'm sorry. You, your wife and your daughter, where did you guys move eventually in terms of where did you live?

HH: Oh, yes. After a while, we decided it would be better to find another house. And so I looked around the Beacon Hill area and such, and also even farther south. But we wanted to kind of stay closer to the Japanese area, Jackson Street area. So we did find a house on Beacon Hill, a corner house, and it was very... when you think about it from now, it was only $8,750 for a corner house. But it was more or less built right after the war, and it was a very small house, a two-bedroom house. But anyway, it was somewhere we were able to get a house, and we bought a house there.

TI: Now, were there very many other Japanese families in that area?

HH: Yes, in that area there were a few, not a lot, but when we looked around the Beacon Hill area, the farthest south, I remember it must have been around about the golf course area, so it wasn't really too far. We thought that that was pretty far south anyway, but there were a few people living a little farther south, but not too far away from the Rainier Avenue, Rainier Beach area and such. So some already had houses around that area.

TI: And so your house was, I think earlier you said, like, on College Street, right around there?

HH: Yes, it's on Eighteenth and College, yes.

TI: I know that neighborhood because I grew up on Nineteenth and College.

HH: Yes.

TI: So during this period -- I'm jumping around a little bit -- but you had your first daughter, Sachi, Janet Sachi, who was born at Tule Lake in 1943. And then in 1947 you had your first son, Robert Isamu?

HH: Uh-huh.

TI: And then in 1951, in March, you had Linda Yoshi, so you had three children. I'm curious, can you talk about the naming of your children? How did you come up with the names for each one?

HH: Oh, well, I had the naming of my oldest daughter, Sachi, and Sachi was already named when she was born in Tule Lake. And at the same time, I decided to name her Sachi because her grandmother, my mother-in-law, her name was Ko, K-O.

TI: So your wife's mother's name was Ko.

HH: Yes. And so the Japanese character is written the same character, but the Chinese reading, so-called Chinese reading and Japanese reading, Ko is the more formal character reading, and the Japanese or common name, you could use as a name, I named her Sachi.

TI: Oh, so Sachi was named after her grandmother, or your wife's mother.

HH: Yes.

TI: And then where did Janet come from?

HH: Janet was our choice, my wife and I, and I don't know where it came from, but we named her Janet Sachi.

TI: Okay, so let's go to the second one, Robert Isamu. Where did those names come from?

HH: Robert came, there was no problem there. I named him after my friend Bob Johnson, who had a lot to do with my life from Lincoln High School days.

TI: Okay, that's where Robert came from. How about Isamu?

HH: Isamu is my uncle's name on my mother's side, Isamu.

TI: And so he was one of the uncles that you lived with in Japan?

HH: No, the younger, Linda's name is named Yoshi, the character is the same, like Linda, and Yoshi is the same character for my uncle's name, Yoshio, and Linda's name, Yoshi.

TI: Okay, so Isamu was your wife's uncle, and then Yoshi is named after another uncle from Japan?

HH: Yes, on my mother's side.

TI: On your mother's side. And then Linda, was there anything with that name?

HH: No. [Laughs] I don't think so.

<End Segment 33> - Copyright © 2006 Densho. All Rights Reserved.