<Begin Segment 9>

TI: Let's go to December 7, 1941, Sunday, that Pearl Harbor was bombed. Do you recall where you were and what you were doing when you heard the news?

SI: Yes, I do. I happened to be at the church, and a friend of mine came biking up the alley to tell us that there's a war that broke out between Japan and the United States. So I was behind the temple at that time in the alley, and I just remember that very distinctly.

TI: And what were you thinking when you heard that news? What went through your mind?

SI: I really didn't think of much of anything at that time. I thought, "Gee, that's something new." But I couldn't really think of the magnitude of the problem, the gravity of the problem. See, how old was I then?

TI: Only about thirteen, twelve, thirteen.

SI: Eleven or twelve. I was twelve years old.

TI: I just realized, when you mentioned being in the alley behind the temple, it was behind a brand new temple at that point.

SI: It was behind the current location on Fourteenth and South Main.

TI: Which is, was at that point...

SI: Which is where it is right now, yes.

TI: Which, at that time, was a fairly new building.

SI: It was a brand-new building. It wasn't hardly even, well, used yet. They were still building it. The guts of it were still being built. Laying out all the inside rooms and whatnot. Our residences, the minister's residences happened to be right across the alley from the temple facing Jackson Street, what is now the parking lot. There were two old houses there, and one was inhabited by us, and the other by Reverend Terao's family.

TI: And before we talk about the war, what do you remember in terms of what it took to build a new temple? I mean, that must have been a major undertaking.

SI: From what I could gather, because I really didn't understand what was all going on other than the fact that they were building the temple, I could see the structure going up. And I could see it from the back window of my home, how the building was going up and how the brick layers were laying the bricks on there, how the concrete was being poured. All the volunteers would come in and nail in all the studs and whatnot. I could see it visually every day as it was being built. So, yes, I did have a grandstand view of the whole temple being built from the ground up.

TI: And do you recall or know who funded the building of the temple? Where did the funds come? Because it is a very impressive building.

SI: Well, those are the things that are very sketchy in my mind. But I figure that some people in the temple must be collecting the money, or have the resources to lay down a foundation for the building fund. I understand later on that they had been thinking for many, many years of relocating from the old temple to the new one. So they had to move out of the old temple, which was located on 1020 Main Street, only about three blocks to the west of our current temple, because the government was going to use that area for a housing project.

TI: And so going back to December 7th, so at that point, it was a brand new building, you said they were still working on it. Had there been any services in the new building at that point?

SI: I think that they had conducted some kind of opening service dedicating the building. Like I mentioned before, many of those rooms downstairs in the basement were yet to be completed, but still in a rough-in stage. The chapel area, the main chapel area, was pretty much completed. I don't know about the auditorium, whether the auditorium was completely painted. It was useable in the sense that they already held some kind of a national convention earlier that year.

TI: And at that point, was the gym done, or just the main building?

SI: The gym was done so that you could use it, but I don't believe the walls were painted or the walls were plastered or painted yet. They still had the bricks exposed.

TI: Because even to this day, it's a beautiful building, and I imagine back in 1941, it was a pretty impressive place for the community.

SI: I think it was, yes.

<End Segment 9> - Copyright © 2009 Densho. All Rights Reserved.