<Begin Segment 15>

TI: So eventually the two of you decided to get married? Do you recall how that was decided?

WY: Well, he was quite persistent, you know, so I got to like him. He was funny, too, very funny. It's my kind of humor, and I like that. I judge people on their sense of humor.

TI: And do you recall when you got married, what year?

WY: We got married twice. We got married in Las Vegas. We were staying -- he was staying with a black family, and they said, "You guys should get married." So they took us to Las Vegas, and Las Vegas was very, very prejudiced then against blacks. So we got married in a little tiny room called Wee Kirk O' the Heather. [Laughs] And we came home, they wouldn't -- our friends were black and we couldn't find a hotel that would put us up, so we had to come home. And (Chester) had a trailer in the back of this black friend's house, so we lived in the trailer. Every time his mother and father would come to Los Angeles, I'd have to move out of the trailer because he hadn't told them yet. And I said, "Gee, I don't like this. This guy is under his parents' thumb." And I told him, "I think we should tell him," and he says, "No, no. We'll tell them when it's time." Well, the Korean War got on, they wanted him to be married because they didn't want him to go to war. So they said, "You (can) get married anytime you want." I said, "Just tell them that we're already married." And he said, "No, no, we don't want to do that." So we got married again at his brother's house.

TI: Oh, interesting. So you were married in Vegas.

WY: In Las Vegas.

TI: But he wasn't able to tell his parents?

WY: His father was very domineering.

TI: Oh, and so you guys had to get married again.

WY: Yeah. And you know what his father told him? "We thought that Wakako was so overbearing that you couldn't say a word. But now we notice that you seem to be holding the upper hand." And then, oh god, it's amazing. And then once that show got on the TV...

TI: Oh, your play And the Soul Shall Dance?

WY: Uh-huh. We were divorced, you know. We were married twenty-five years, and we were divorced. And all of a sudden his mother calls me. Isn't that amazing what a little bit of, you know, success --

TI: And she called you to say what?

WY: She said, "Oh," she said, "you did such a beautiful job," and this and that. And I said -- he remarried right away, you know -- I said, "Look, I'm no longer your daughter-in-law. You shouldn't be talking to me like this." "You'll always be my daughter." The minute we got divorced, nobody wanted to tell her, 'cause they thought she would be so upset. And then she finally found out and she says to me, she called me up and says, "Well, those things happen."

TI: It sounds like she liked you.

WY: No, she didn't like me.

TI: Oh, she didn't?

WY: No. She thought I was very domineering, you know.

TI: But yet she called you right after the divorce.

WY: After the divorce, because she was so glad that -- oh, no, right after the play went on TV. See what a little success does? Everybody's your friend.

TI: Interesting.

WY: Yeah, isn't it interesting? I said, "Look, I'm no longer your daughter."

TI: So I'm doing some math here. So it looks like you were married about 1950?

WY: 1948.

TI: 1948, and you said you were married for twenty-five years, so you divorced around 1973, '74?

WY: '74, uh-huh.

<End Segment 15> - Copyright © 2009 Densho. All Rights Reserved.