<Begin Segment 12>

MA: What type of work did your stepfather do in Japan? Do you know?

NM: My stepfather, I don't know. He eventually married over there and took the wife's name. They do that when there isn't anyone to hand the property to. So he lived on a, I don't know if it was a farm or what, but they had property down there. And I remember my sister writing, not to me, but to my brother that she had one picture of my mother, and she had pasted it in one of her boxes on the cover, because I don't think my stepfather wanted to have anything to do with us, although he was pretty nice to us while we were together.

MA: How did you find out about her? Were you in communication with her? You said you received, your brother received a letter, was it --

NM: I think what happened was my brother was a Boy Scout leader, and they went up north to Sacramento for a conference, and he was looking through the roster and he saw a Sawada, and it happened to be my stepfather's, father's kids. And this person was going to go to Japan on this Boy Scout, another conference. So he, see, they knew where my sister was. But they wouldn't tell us.

MA: You mean your, the relatives.

NM: My stepfather's family.

[Interruption]

MA: You were telling the story about your brother communicating with your sister who was in Japan. How he was in the Boy Scouts and went to Sacramento.

NM: Oh, okay. My brother gave this, supposedly a cousin, his address and said, "If you see her, give her this address." And I guess this cousin knew where she was. Where we didn't know, we didn't even know where she was, or if she was alive or anything. But, I think that's how my brother got, she got in touch with my brother. Or through the archive, I don't know which was which, but we were, (...) my husband and I were in Canada. And my brother got a letter from my sister. And I usually call home about once or twice a week. And, then my daughter says, "You got a letter from your brother and he wrote and said that he finally got in contact with our sister." And I was just flabbergasted.

MA: Was that the first contact you had seen from her?

NM: Uh-huh. And then so my brother started writing about her life here in the United States, and she didn't know her name was Joyce. And write about our mother and our time together, what little time we had together.

MA: So it seems like your, I don't know if they deliberately did this but there was sort of an effort to, like your stepfather's relatives didn't want you to contact her, and there was sort of this divide.

NM: Yes, because I don't think my grandparents didn't like, well didn't really care for our stepfather.

MA: Oh, I see.

NM: And then so, once my mother passed away, well my stepfather decided well, break all ties, I guess.

<End Segment 12> - Copyright © 2008 Densho. All Rights Reserved.