<Begin Segment 27>

TI: You know, at this point, I'm going to switch gears a little bit, and you mentioned earlier that you were married and raising a family, going back to school and all that. Tell me how you met your wife.

AA: She was a secretary at the Civil Aeronautics Administration. I used to send supplies up to her and I used to talk to her, she'd order stuff and I used to send it up. One day, one Christmas, they had a Christmas party, and so I went up there, and that's where I met her for the first time.

TI: And up to this point, did you do very much dating with other women in terms of through school and after the war and all that?

AA: Oh, I had, yeah, I dated occasionally, not... I didn't have anybody steady, just once in a while, different girls.

TI: And what was this woman's name that you, eventually became your wife? What was her name?

AA: That's Kay Yoshihara.

TI: And what was it about her that, that attracted you to her?

AA: Well, I used to talk to her on the phone for quite a while, and I was curious to see what she was like, her voice was pleasant. Went up and saw her, and after the Christmas party, she used to take a bus home to Renton, and so I had a new car, so I said, "I'll give you a ride home," so I took her home and then we started dating.

TI: That's a good story. So tell me a little bit about Kay and her family. Did she have siblings?

AA: Yeah, she came from a large family, too, they had eight kids in the family. The father was working for, as a gardener, he worked for Kubota Gardens. She had an older brother that had contracted tuberculosis in the army when he was up at Fort Snelling, and so he, he got discharged and he was in Firland's at that time. So my wife had pretty much, she was the second child, so she had pretty much the responsibility for the whole family. The parents were not very fluent in English, and so she took care of all the legal things, helping with the youngsters. They had a whole bunch of younger kids, so she, so she looked after the family.

TI: And this is a slight tangent, but more recently, she's been honored for her work feeding the homeless in Seattle, and I've read several articles about her. And so she's done a lot of good work in this area. So I'm now going to switch gears again, 'cause we have about twenty minutes.

AA: Oh.

TI: Go ahead.

AA: Her family, her younger brother is named Takeshi, and he was the first Japanese American to be appointed to Annapolis.

TI: Oh, that's interesting.

AA: And he eventually rose up to the rank of captain, and he retired.

TI: Good, yeah.

<End Segment 27> - Copyright © 2008 Densho. All Rights Reserved.