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TI: So let's, so after the first wife left, your father remarried. So can you describe or recall how that happened with your mother?

TO: I really have no, no idea at all, other than I assume that... I know he went to Japan and brought her back. And so how this came about, I suppose some arrangement or something. My mother was, wasn't a typical young woman at the time, she was a little bit older than a typical bride in those days.

TI: And what was your father doing when he went back to Japan to meet your mom?

TO: As far as... he was working for, there was a pretty big Japanese company called the Furuya Company that was pretty well-known and a very prominent business organization here. And he was delivering food for them, different places, orders of whatever they were selling. I recall one incident he said that he was, must have had a big night before or something, but he was in his horse and wagon, he must have fell asleep. And all of a sudden when he woke up, there was a big ding-ding-ding. And I think he was on a railroad track, on those trestles that were going out to West Seattle. If you recall -- I don't remember them, but if you recall some pictures of the old days, there was some railroad tracks that went to, streetcar tracks that went to West Seattle. For some reason, the horse went out on that railroad track and they were kind of stuck out there. [Laughs] They had a heck of a time getting the horse and the wagon back off the track so the streetcar can get through. But I distinctly remember him telling us that.

TI: So luckily it wasn't like a train track where the train couldn't stop, it was a streetcar so it just stopped.

TO: It was a streetcar, yeah.

TI: How would you describe your father? What kind of personality did your father have?

TO: Well, he, if I recall, he was, he was okay as a dad, but he was very, not very nice to my mother. That's something that I do, that I do recall. And I think maybe that was one of the reasons for his first, splitting of his first wife. I really don't know. There must have been all kinds of reasons, but he wasn't very nice to my mother. I don't think that was too unusual for Issei men at that time, compared to us Nisei and you Sansei guys that were a little more different than we are. [Laughs] We've still got some of the old...

TI: Which is interesting because sometimes when... people who see this interview are generations removed from the Isseis. And when you say it was common for, sometimes, the Issei men to be hard on their wives, how would you describe that? Or what would be some examples of how the Issei would be, would act towards his wife?

TO: I think it was... I don't recall him being real demanding, but just the way, I guess it was just the culture of the thing, that he would be served first and those type of things that kind of impressed me. And then he was always, Mother would always let him take the bath first and all those type of things that kind of makes an impression on you.

<End Segment 3> - Copyright © 2009 Densho. All Rights Reserved.