<Begin Segment 23>

TI: And while the kids were young, your husband became ill in the '50s. So a little bit later, after the war.

KK: Became ill.

TI: Yeah, did he, 'cause your husband died...

KK: In '55.

TI: In '55. So the kids were still quite young.

KK: Yeah, the oldest was twelve, and the youngest was six.

TI: And so what happened to your husband? How did he die?

KK: Oh, he just had a heart attack. I can't remember just what the, what the name that they gave it. Anyway, it's something, something about the heart bursting. I don't know what that... at least, that's the idea I got. But he, he did have a, he did have some small attacks before he died, and I urged him to go to the doctor, and I made appointments and he canceled. And he said, "Well, it's more important to get those guys' teeth ready for going away." So he just would not lay off. So anyway, I guess, I guess we went to the doctor, of course, and the doctor told him to stay home and, "Don't go to work." But he wouldn't listen, he went to work instead. So one day, I got a phone call from the office nurse to say that, "You better come and get him because he had another heart attack." So I went down and got him and put him in the hospital, and that's where he died ten days later. Was it ten days? Something like that.

TI: So at this point, you had children from six to twelve, four children. And at this point, you had to go on without a husband.

KK: Yeah.

TI: I'm guessing that was a very hard time for you.

KK: Well, when I come to think about it, it was kind of numb, I think. And I don't remember what I did. I must have, Shiz and her family lived around the corner from us, and so they were concerned, I guess. And I just took it for granted that she would see to things if it got tough or something. But I can't remember too much what I did. But I must have run the household okay because the kids never said anything. They were too young. I don't, I can't remember details of what I did.

TI: Yeah, sometimes those years become a blur because you're just so either numb or busy just getting by, day by day.

KK: Well, that's true. And he had good friends, had a good lawyer friend that took care of the details of all that stuff. And I don't know whatever happened to him. He sort of disappeared from there, I guess, I don't know. But he set up all the papers and stuff with Hawaiian Trust, and they saw to collections for a while. I don't know what the arrangement was. But the lawyer, man said that they had, he'd gone to the Hawaiian Trust and thought that they could do everything properly so that there would be no reverberations afterwards. And they would take care of the finances and all of that for the first while. So I didn't need to worry about that stuff, and I guess I just took him at his word and decided that they would take care of it, and it did.

TI: So you were fortunate that you had good people handling the estate, you had your sister, her family, to help out.

KK: Otherwise, I think I was just numb.

TI: Because I'm thinking, we're talking, it was over fifty years ago, '55.

KK: Yeah.

TI: It's been a long time, too.

<End Segment 23> - Copyright © 2008 Densho. All Rights Reserved.