<Begin Segment 7>

TI: You mentioned a little bit earlier that your stepbrother returned from Japan?

TO: Uh-huh.

TI: So was he there helping your father?

TO: No. By then he got a job working in the sawmills, so he went to the sawmill, I think, a place called Onalaska.

TI: So tell me, what was your stepbrother's name?

TO: Shigeru.

TI: And was he the only one that came back from Japan?

TO: No, no, his older sister, Natsuko, was here. She was here earlier. Kind of interesting, the connection with her was when she was a young woman and I think she had some nursing training or something. Because there was a hospital just on Twelfth and King Street there, a Japanese hospital. That's where that Chinese market there is now, right next to the Vets Clubhouse. And she was nursing there when she met, before she met her husband. But I do have that, I was told that, of course, that she was a nurse there, or a nurse's aide or something.

TI: And about how much older was Natsuko than you?

TO: Natsuko was probably about twenty years older than I was.

TI: Twenty years older.

TO: Yeah.

TI: And so Shigeru was also quite a bit older, too.

TO: Yeah, so he must have been eighteen, and Takumi was older, then Yoshiko. There was Takumi and Yoshiko. And Yoshiko just passed away. She was probably about maybe five, six years older than I was.

TI: Oh, so there were...

TO: There were four children. And the interesting part of them, when we were in camp, it was a big controversy because my oldest brother Shigeru --

TI: Right, so we're gonna get to that later. I just wanted to establish kind of... and so, although they worked, Shigeru worked at the sawmill, did he live with the family?

TO: No, no. I think at this sawmill camp there was housing.

TI: Or how about the younger one, Takumi?

TO: Takumi worked at the same sawmill.

TI: Okay.

TO: After he came from Japan.

TI: And then the daughter or the...

TO: The oldest sister, her husband was working in the sawmill, but they ended up farming.

TI: But there was a younger sister, too?

TO: Younger sister, Yoshiko.

TI: Did she live with your father, your family?

TO: Very short time. Then she went as a housegirl, then she got married shortly after that.

TI: Okay. Good, I just wanted to establish those four.

<End Segment 7> - Copyright © 2009 Densho. All Rights Reserved.