<Begin Segment 9>

MH: And then my mother became sick in hospital. My brother was born there and then the nurse was same sickness became. Three people in the hospital. My father had to go to Kure and then took the nurse and then my mother and the baby just born, took to Kure. But she, they have to get off the sometime.

DG: What was in Kure?

MH: Church.

DG: The church?

MH: He wanted to go to a particular church, then one month later the Tokyo earthquake and where we lived, all gone. It's a funny thing to happen.

DG: So he was basically inspired to go and leave Tokyo, you're saying.

BF: To save the family.

DG: Right.

MH: That's why we follow the father decision and the sickness people...

DG: Do you know what kind of sickness it was?

MH: Sekiri, what they call?

DG: I guess I don't know what that is.

MH: In the stomach.

DG: Stomach problem.

MH: Diarrhea.

DG: So then you graduated from Kure. And did you graduate from the public school there or the...

MH: Yes, kenritsu. Kenritsu. That time Prince Takamatsu is in Kure no, I mean, naval school. So all the top naval people came to Kure and then Etajima, that school. And then my mother's uncle was also naval school's president.

DG: So that school there sounds like it was kind of like a prestigious school.

MH: You mean -- yeah.

DG: In Japan. In the whole of Japan?

MH: Well, that time because...

DG: Part of the government, of the new government, after the Meiji Revolution came from that southern part, right? And so it gained a reputation probably that way.

MH: Gradually changing that Japan was, but not suddenly.

DG: So America was the place to go. Is that why your father... what did you think?

MH: I don't think anything, just follow him.

DG: You just followed your father.

MH: Because that happened, you know, the Tokyo earthquake, and so forth, everything comes that way, that Tono city he left.

DG: Okay.

MH: When he was a minister that couldn't hold one time the people, so morning and night and he separated and then had a meeting. Well, after that, became smaller. And then went to Korea, Korea he started, too.

BF: So he was planting churches where he went and sounds like he was a very powerful minister.

MH: Yes, quite a bit.

<End Segment 9> - Copyright © 1997 Densho. All Rights Reserved.