Densho Digital Archive - Larry "Shorty" Kazumura Interview (denshovh-klarry-01-0016)

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MA: So Larry, what did you do after the war was over and you were discharged, and you left the military?

LK: After the war? Well, I worked for the golf course for three years, then after that, my wife -- she's from Seattle -- so she wanted to go home. And amazingly, she said Seattle don't snow. And now that is April Fool's Day, now, April Fool's Day, we left the golf course to Seattle. This is on Seventeenth, just by Buddhist Church. Anyway, so on the particular day, April 1st, we took the plane, Northwest Airlines, to Seattle. And, yeah, four inches of snow in April. She said, "There's never snow in Seattle." So I'm, I can't, anything happen to me like this. [Laughs]

MA: How did you meet your wife?

LK: Huh?

MA: How did you meet your wife?

LK: Now, my friend got wounded, and now, that's another thing. The Germans knew him all the time. They shot him, and he was on a stretcher, and they shot him again. Now, they shot his leg, and internally, yeah, he got hurt, too, and he finally told me, "You know why they shot me? I was carrying a machine gun, .45 machine gun." He said, "When they saw that gun, they shot me, and then they shot me again." [Laughs] I said, "How in the heck are the Germans shooting a wounded guy?" Well, that's what happened when the medics was... so I was surprised that... he won the Medal of Honor. Anyway, yeah, he got, he didn't get wounded, but he won the Medal of Honor. And award citation came out, Silver Star and Distinguished Service Cross. How come a guy like that can, Silver Star when he should be awarded double the Medal of Honor?

MA: So he was injured and in the hospital?

LK: Huh?

MA: Is this how you met your wife? Was it through this person?

LK: So now, when Terry got hurt and he was in Walter Reed General Hospital, he met my wife's sister, and she's short. But now, she wrote to me and said, "I got a short, short sister." I mean, short, short. She was 4'5". And so, and she comes from Madrona. You know where Madrona is? So I started writing to her, and she said, you know, she surprised me. "Why don't you get married?" I said, "Married? I hardly know you." "No, no, no, we're gonna get married." I said, "Holy Christmas, married?" And so we got married. Now, when she came -- my dad was okay now -- when my dad came to Hawaii, he got a stroke. I mean, half of him is all dead, now. He can't do nothing with the right, right side. Anyway, he had a stroke, paralyzed halfway, so he was. So now we can't get married. So my friend Terry, that introduced me to the sister, and the sister introduced me to my wife, said, "Gee, I got six of us. You want to get married, you're gonna get married." So he hired a lawyer at the courthouse, so we went to the courthouse and we were supposed to get a... what the heck that... anyway, a blood test before we can get married. Anyway, he, we were supposed to wait three days, but the judge felt sorry for us, he said, "Well, we don't have to wait three days. You gonna get married, you're gonna get married." [Laughs] So he got us married, and got all my six friends, all witnessed my marriage.

MA: So that was in Hawaii? You got married in Hawaii?

LK: Huh?

MA: You got married in Hawaii?

LK: Yeah.

MA: And then moved to --

LK: (Hilo).

MA: And then moved to Seattle.

LK: See, I'm from Hilo, but we got married in Honolulu. And so amazingly everything came out okay.

MA: What did you think of Seattle when you first arrived?

LK: Cold and... not only that, you know when the snow was there, oh, man, did I get sick. And you know I don't like airplane ride, so I was sick from the plane ride, and my daughter is running all over on the airplane, and me, I'm sick. And so when I came to Seattle, yeah, I stay on bed. For a while I was in bed because too cold. [Laughs] The snow was too cold for me. But now I'm thinking about it, I'm getting used to it.