<Begin Segment 16>

TI: Okay, that was really fast, so let's talk about, how did the two of you first meet?

LH: Yes. Well, we first met there at the embassy in (1958).

TI: And under what circumstances did you...

LH: Well, literally, she had heard about this fellow that had seventeen concubines and a Chinese cook, who had the best dinner serving in Tokyo.

TI: And that was you?

LH: And that was me. [Laughs]

TI: So how did the rumor happen?

LH: Well, in other words, I had lots of girlfriends, and I did have a Chinese cook, and I entertained well. I had heard about her, that she was coming out as a, as an editor for the embassy, and so I was looking forward to meeting her, and having seen pictures of her. But then I was reassigned to Korea, but I looked her up when I came on leave. In fact, I cancelled a second tour in Korea to get married, to stay there in Japan with her.

TI: So it sounds like that went really fast.

LH: It was; it was very fast. We met in August to say hello, I went back in November, and after four dates, we got engaged. I went back to Washington, changed my assignment, came back to Tokyo, and we got married in January of '59.

TI: So I'm curious, how did her family react to her marrying you?

LH: Excellent question. The Navy, the most prejudiced of all the services, the father was very open-minded. He never hated the Japanese, the Japanese-Japanese, he knew that they were just the enemy. And the mother was a grande dame, and was very careful with me. And when I, when their only son, meaning my brother-in-law, was married up in Seattle while I was on leave, he was attending the UW getting his master's through the Air Force, though he's a naval, Annapolis graduate. I was his best man, so the father came up for the marriage and I flew back with him to Sonoma to meet the mother who had been ill. And she would not introduce me around her social circle as her daughter's fiance. But later became her favorite son-in-law. [Laughs]

TI: [Laughs] How about your family? How did they react to you?

LH: Well, actually, my father was, had already passed away. My mother was a little wary, because she had known of some, I guess, Issei that had married Caucasians in Seattle, and the marriages hadn't worked out, and I don't want to mention the names here while this is being recorded. I can give you a name or two later. And she also knew that there are lot of divorces among Caucasians, and she just didn't think, you know, intermarriage would work out, though she really wasn't prejudiced against Caucasians, we had so many Caucasian friends. But once she knew it was set in concrete, she accepted it, and it worked out beautifully.

TI: And so where did the two of you get married?

LH: We got married in Tokyo, and we got married, you have to get married legally in the embassy, and that was January 6th of 1959, and then you get registered in the Japanese ward office there, near the embassy, to make it legal in the eyes of the Japanese, and then you have a church wedding, which we had an Episcopal ceremony on January 15th, which is Adult's Day in Japan, a holiday, and Martin Luther King Day here, now.

<End Segment 16> - Copyright © 2007 Densho. All Rights Reserved.