Densho Digital Archive
Densho Visual History Collection
Title: Mary Hirata Interview
Narrator: Mary Hirata
Interviewers: Beth Kawahara (primary), Alice Ito (secondary)
Location: Seattle, Washington
Date: March 27, 1998
Densho ID: denshovh-hmary-01-0030

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BK: You've done so many things in your life like that. While your children were growing up then, were you, what kinds of activities were they able to get involved in, because you were so very busy as well as your husband?

MH: Well, my daughter was always in Scouts. My son would never join because he always had to go with his sister every place. I mean, you know. And I was scout leader for several years, I would do it before we went to work. And then on weekends if they had camping trips -- well, I always had weekends off, I did have enough seniority to get weekends off. So we'd take weekends. My husband would come home early and take the truck and bring all the stuff, and then we'd take it up to where we were going, and he'd drop us off and then bring Rodney back. So they'd spend the night together, and just Bev and I and the girls.

BK: Was this scout troop through a local Japanese American church?

MH: No. It was through school. So it was a very, you know, a mixed crowd, so it was, like I say, it was, wasn't just the Japanese community. My daughter went to St. Peter's church, but it was only because her aunt and uncle would pick her up every Sunday and take her. My son was very rebellious, he wouldn't always go. [Laughs] He wanted to stay home with Mom.

BK: So you didn't take them to church?

MH: No.

BK: I'm mean, you're...

MH: No, because... actually, it was hard for me to decide, my husband was, family is very staunch Buddhist. And I had been raised a Christian, so it was hard for me to decide, and I'd gone to the Buddhist church, thinking I would go. But then I would sit there, and nobody would talk to me. So I figured after a few weeks of that, I don't think I want to come here. So I just quit. I let the children go where I knew that they would be welcome, and I didn't have to worry about it.

BK: And so, at the St. Peter's church, then they were...

MH: Oh, yeah.

BK: ...much more welcome there.

MH: Uh-huh. Because their cousin, the Fujiokas, went there, and so they knew them. My brother was real active at that time, there, so I didn't have to worry about them. Although when it came time for her to get married, she wouldn't get married in an Episcopal church, and I was so disappointed.

BK: Was there a reason for that?

MH: Oh, she didn't care for the minister. You know how kids are. So she got married in her husband's Brethren church out in the north end.

<End Segment 30> - Copyright © 1998 Densho. All Rights Reserved.