<Begin Segment 33>

TI: So I want to finish up with your family. We talked about you going off to the war and having kind of this understanding with June that she was your girl. And so when you came back to the States, how did you connect, reconnect with June?

MT: Well, I knew she was in Denver, so on the way home I stopped in Denver, spent about a week there, and then I came home to Seattle. Then shortly after that, she moved into Seattle. Her folks had gone back to Alaska, and she had no desire to go up to Alaska, so she stayed in Seattle. We got married a little after that, so we celebrated, what, sixty years, sixty-three years, not too long ago.

TI: So you were married in, like, 1944?

MT: '46.

TI: '46. Okay, so yeah, it'd be about forty -- I'm sorry, sixty-two years.

MT: Yeah.

TI: And, oh yeah, before we go on there, so what was June's maiden name, her family name?

MT: Oyama.

TI: Oyama. Okay, and she came from Petersburg, Alaska.

MT: So when it was, Monday we went out for St. Patrick's Day, and we went as Mr. and Mr. O-hyphenated Yama. [Laughs]

TI: Oh, that's right. So she's, she's Irish for one day on St. Patrick's Day. The O'Yama clan. And then from there, tell me about your family in terms of your children and how that worked out?

MT: Well, all four of 'em finished high school, finished college one place or another, and two of 'em are in Idaho. My oldest daughter here moved to Seattle just recently, and my son lives here in Seattle and he's working.

TI: And so let me just establish -- so you had four children, a son Steve, and three daughters, Vicky, Marsha, and Lori.

MT: Uh-huh.

TI: And where in Seattle did you live, and where did they grow up?

MT: When we first came back, we lived in Rainier Valley, we were renting a home there. And then we bought a house in, near Garfield. And from there, we moved over to West Seattle and lived there, we've been there, I think, forty-something years.

TI: And that's traditionally not a place where very many Japanese Americans live.

MT: Yeah.

TI: So why'd you choose West Seattle?

MT: It was available, I think there was still a little resentment of Japanese trying to go into Laurelhurst or even Mt. Baker, maybe. But West Seattle seemed like a very hospitable group there.

TI: Okay, good.

<End Segment 33> - Copyright © 2008 Densho. All Rights Reserved.