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

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AI: Well, what about the two of you? Any childhood memories? Starting school, any of your activities, what you did when you were a youngster?

TI: Well, like I mentioned earlier, I was born on Peterson Hill, but our family moved from there to the Midlakes area when I was about five years old. And my earliest recollection of going to school was starting kindergarten at the Bellevue grade school, I believe that's the same one where Mr. Matsuzawa went to. And well, we were in a Japanese row more or less on Peterson Hill, so I did not have any contact with any other children, other than Japanese family children. But when we moved to Bellevue, we were sorta isolated away from another Japanese row that, there was... consisted mostly of farmers again. But they were in a row and we were a little ways away from that. But when I started going to kindergarten, there were about seven or eight Japanese kids in the class. In fact, there's several of them still living in this area. Several families went back to Japan, but one thing I remember clearly is that we had a wonderful teacher named Mrs. Baunsgard. And she really set the tone for me as far as learning about the skill in the early days. She was very helpful. She -- throughout her teaching career and afterwards, she was very beneficial to the Japanese community. Other than that, most of our fun times were pretty much geared around the Japanese community, where we had the clubhouse, and sports activities, and social gatherings.

AI: Now, Mr. Hirotaka, you were the only boy in your family, really. You must have had some responsibilities from a young age. But does anything stand out as times when you had fun, when you had playtime when you were a child, or when you were going to school? Anything like that come to mind? Did you also go to the Bellevue grade school?

TH: Yes, we all graduated from Bellevue High School but, when I started grade school I went to the old Main Street school. And, that's many many years ago, now. [Laughs] But high school, I graduated in '28, played a little basketball, and a lot of baseball... it's hard to believe, but I was on the Honor Society at one time. [Laughs]

AI: Were there very many other Japanese kids in your class?

TH: Any other? I was in Bellevue Seinenkai. I remember the Bellevue Historical Society, and Bellevue Yao city, Bellevue, Yao Sister City.

AI: Well, speaking of the Seinenkai, I understand that means something like a 'young people's club'? Mr. Matsuzawa, I was wondering if you remember when that was formed.

JM: I was a member of it, I never did, wasn't capable, so I never was a officer but, like Mr. Hirotaka and several others, (...) were always in the official position, and leadership positions. (...) Most of the kids of Mr. Ito's age, they were almost all the same age, so they had teams and they played pretty good together. Whereas like Mr. Hirotaka and myself, a little bit older, and there hadn't, not too many of us. So we just gathered whoever we could and we played ball, and we got beat all the time. But by the time that these younger folks got of age, they gelled pretty well, and one time they won the Northwest championship, baseball. And we played football, and I played high school baseball, Tok played in the -- Mr. Hirotaka played baseball, too. If they had other sports, I would have played, too, I had also basketball. We all played it at one time. The younger folks, Bellevue High School, had a football team. Why, they won a championship, and Mr. Ito was part of it, and his brother, Hiroshi, was part of it. There were two or three other people that were prominent in athletics. We were all pretty proud of them.

AI: Sounds like it was very active with sports.

JM: In later years, everyone (...) pretty much, played well together.

AI: And who did the coaching? Where, how...?

JM: Well, football team, the high school coach volunteered. Mr. Green, is that right?

TI: Well, he was a schoolteacher, also. Yeah, Norman Green was the coach when I was going, and during my junior year I believe, he was replaced by Mr. Phil Pesco, who was also a teacher. And he coached basketball and football.