<Begin Segment 4>

TI: Let's now go back and talk about your mother.

ET: Okay.

TI: And how did your father and mother meet?

ET: I think it's arranged marriage. And I think they were a just perfectly suited couple, I guess, come to think about it.

TI: So can you tell me your mother's name and where she, she was raised?

ET: Yeah. Her name is Michiko Oka, O-K-A. So happens that Keith's name is Oka, too. Michiko Oka. And let's see. She passed away in 199-... when was the earthquake in Japan?

TI: The Kobe earthquake?

ET: Yeah, Kobe earthquake.

TI: Oh, I can't remember.

ET: 1997? No, no, 1995. And she saw me on the television because I was sitting right behind the Crown Prince and Princess, and they couldn't cut me off because I was there every time they shot him, shot them. And my mother caught it and she said, well, Ed's home, how come he's not coming over here? Everybody told her that, "He cannot come unless he walks or swims." You know, no transportation at that time.

TI: So let me make sure I understand. So you were in Kobe when this...

ET: Kobe after the earthquake.

TI: But you weren't able to come back because the transportation was all shut down.

ET: There was none. It was all, they had to pick me up, and took a long time to come back to Nishinomiya.

TI: But they also saw you on TV, though.

ET: Yeah, because I was, I was very, very involved in the sister city program, and my dear friends, former mayor of Nishinomiya, passed away, and I said, "I'm coming over." But they said, "Don't come, we'll let you know when you can come." It took about almost, almost a month before they had this memorial service for the people, I guess... about how many died? I can't remember, it was over a hundred people died in Nishinomiya, and the mayor was one of 'em, the former mayor, Mr. Tatsuma. So Mother was quite disappointed that I didn't come to see her. She called several times, and then I went to see her in the same year, September, and then went back, and I was just one day late, she passed away.

TI: So both --

ET: But that was okay, because she was ninety-nine, and I said, minute I saw my stepbrother, I knew there was, something happened to my mother. Said, "Is she alive or dead?" And he looked up and said, "Well, she was alive 'til this morning. I don't know whether she could respond or not, she was on the life support." Said, "You should let her go," because she had a great life even though camp and other sad thing happened, but that happened to everybody. So that kind of relieved a whole lot of people, she was remarried to another family, we were in pretty good...

TI: And when you mentioned how she and your father were a good couple, or the perfect couple, you said. What was she like?

ET: Well, she was, pretty much you could tell, like Tomio knows, knew her, and some of the older Moriguchi family all knew her. But she was a singer, she was quite an opera singer, and she did appear in a different kind of shows, I guess, I'm not real sure. And she loved music, so she influenced George and some of the others, Sadako. Sadako was already a great pianist, that's Tomio's mother. But Tomio doesn't know that. He never heard when she'd play piano, she was a pianist. When I was little, in fact, she was playing piano and I was right there sleeping, right beside the piano. So that's how I got to know her.

<End Segment 4> - Copyright © 2006 Densho. All Rights Reserved.