Densho Digital Archive - Tokio Hirotaka - Toshio Ito - Joe Matsuzawa Interview (denshovh-htokio

<Begin Segment 45>

AI: Well, now, bringing things up a little bit more to the present, I wanted to ask you, you all had mentioned that you all got married, and all had children, and I believe you all have grandchildren, too. So, I'm going to ask you each about how many children you have, and grandchildren?

JM: Myself, I had four children, three boys and a girl. And ten grandchildren, I just recently had one, a grandchild, about five days ago, I guess. So that makes ten of 'em. And within the ten grandkids I have a set of triplets, which added to the total, grand total. They are all living within this area, the farthest away is Federal Way. But, they're all, and when we get together at our house, why, it's really a madhouse with all the kids, because they're not that old, the oldest one's only fourteen, and the youngest, of course, is that baby. But, the youngest, next to youngest, she's four years old, so she will be four next month. It's quite a houseful when they come over.

AI: Congratulations on the new arrival. And, Mr. Hirotaka, what about your children and grandchildren?

TH: Oh. Let's see. Let's see, my, there's, among my sisters, there's only one living, so that's Tom Shigio's wife, in Sumner. And then, myself, of course, I'm married to Sumi Ito. And then, Gary, well, my older son is Gary, and he works for the Overlake Christian Church. And, Robert is staying at home, and taking care of the two kids and he oversees his father-in-law. That's Mr. Jacobson. And then, he also has to take care of a lot of our duties, because I can't do it, so, I don't know. And then, that's, and then, Gary's son is, one is in Olympia with the police department, and the other, Curtis, is waiting for his call into the police department. And that should wind up. Do you -- is that enough, or do I have to go into --

AI: Oh, that's fine. Thank you.

TH: Yeah, okay.

TI: I married Akiko Suzuki, in 1954. We have three children -- Alice, the eldest, and Jan, the middle daughter, and Elaine, the youngest. Alice and Elaine -- I mean, Alice and Jan live in Seattle, and Elaine is in Oakland. And, we have one grandson, Zenwa, and he's now three and a half years old. And he's one of the joys of our life, at the present time. We are now living -- still in Bellevue -- just north of 520, in the Northup area, and we have been here since 1976. Prior to that we lived on the farm, the old homestead farm between Northeast Eighth and Northeast Tenth Place, right off of 124th Avenue Northeast in Bellevue.