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TI: Okay, so you mentioned the Maryknoll kindergarten. Let's talk about the Maryknolls. Can you describe what Maryknoll is?

TK: Maryknoll is a Foreign Mission Society with headquarters in Ossining, New York that's, they call it Sing Sing, but it's right above Sing Sing. O-S... Ossining. The way it sounds, Ossining, New York.

TI: A foreign mission of the Catholic church?

TK: Yes, Foreign Mission Society of America. I think that's... I'll give you the official name when I get back. (Narr. note: Catholic Foreign Mission Society of America, Inc.)

TI: And so this was a foreign mission, but this is in the United States. Why do they call it a foreign mission?

TK: See, because they were sending priests and the nuns from there to Japan, China, Africa, the very places where they needed missionaries. So they were sending priests from there. At that time, mostly Japan, I think, and China. Oh, Manchuria, too, at that time. They were sending priests.

TI: And so then because of the, I'm guessing, because of the Japanese immigrants coming to Seattle, they decided to open up a mission in Seattle.

TK: Yes. That's when Bishop (Edward John) O'Dea asked the (Maryknoll) sisters to come here to minister to the, to these guys, young guys. [Laughs]

TI: Well, and probably your parents, too.

TK: Parents, too, yes. And so, let's see, that way the parents were introduced to the American society, too, because the sisters would have contacts with the Caucasians. Like the Knights of Columbus and those Caucasian... I shouldn't call them Caucasian, but those society people, St. Vincent de Paul.

TI: So really, it was Bishop O'Dea that really got things moving.

TK: Yes. I'm sorry I don't know his first name, Bishop O'Dea. O'Dea is like O'Dea High School.

TI: Right.

TK: O'Dea High School is named after Bishop O'Dea.

TI: Well, it's going to be fun as we go through this, because I think we're going to be mentioning names that now, I know them as names of buildings more than anything. And like you mentioned O'Dea, which is the name of a well-known high school in Seattle.

TK: High school, football team.

TI: So Bishop O'Dea made the request, so they start the Maryknoll...

TK: He wanted some sisters or nuns or whatever to minister to the incoming immigrants from Japan, and the Chinese, too.

TI: And what would be some of the services or programs the Maryknolls would do for these Japanese immigrants?

TK: Well, first of all, there was Catholic services, mass, and introduction to the Catholic religion, of course. Bring Catholicism to the Japanese.

TI: And anything else besides the religious part?

TK: Well, kindergarten, too. So it was, we didn't have any grade school so they had started with the kindergarten. Eventually, Maryknoll built a school on East Jefferson street, so that's where... oh, that's where, your wife went there.

TI: My mother.

TK: I mean your mother, yeah.

TI: So kindergarten, okay, so it was almost like a preschool prep kind of...

TK: Well, it was the beginning of Maryknoll school in Seattle. We had eight grades at Maryknoll on Jefferson Street.

TI: And I think you mentioned earlier that you were in the very first class?

TK: I was in the first kindergarten. But at that time, they didn't have any first grade or second grade. So that's when I went over to Bailey Gatzert over near the bridge over there.

TI: Let's talk a little bit about that first class. How big was that first kindergarten class?

TK: I would say about ten people only. But, of course, we went out and some more came in, so there weren't more than ten, fifteen, I think, in that house.

TI: So at that point, when you decided, when you went to the kindergarten class, did your parents, were your parents Catholic?

TK: No, they were not. You might say there were so-called Buddhists, I guess, all the immigrants were classified as Buddhists, I guess, at that time. But I think back now, that my mother thought, must have thought, "These are good people coming in." Why not send me there as good training? I think, as I think back.

TI: Okay, so the Maryknolls had the religious services, they had this school...

TK: Kindergarten.

TI: Any other programs?

TK: Well, whatever people teach in kindergarten, in the beginnings of schooling.

TI: How about things, like, for the Isseis? Did they have any programs for the Isseis?

TK: They must have had something for the mothers, yes. But, of course, I don't know about that. They must have had something. If they brought kids there, they must have had the mothers, too, there.

<End Segment 5> - Copyright © 2008 Densho. All Rights Reserved.