<Begin Segment 24>

TI: Now when you think about your, your grandchildren and eventually great-grandchildren and generations, we're recording this for posterity, and if you think fifty, seventy-five years in the future, some of your relatives will see this. Is there anything that you'd want them to know about you or your life many generations later?

FK: Wow.

TI: What would be some of the things that maybe you'd like to say that are important to you in life?

FK: Oh, you should have asked me that last week, I could have written out. [Laughs]

TI: An essay on this.

FK: Right.

TI: But what just comes to mind? What are some of the values that you think are important? You mentioned being proud of being Japanese, I mean, why? What is it about being Japanese that you think is important?

FK: Well, for one, we were brought up to believe in being honest with people. And whatever you do, you should be proud and happy. And I know when I married my husband, we were talking about family, I said, "Whatever you do, I want you to make sure that we don't have to be embarrassed by whatever sinful thing that you may have done and will do, because you have to be able to hold your head up and be proud." And I'd rather have that then a pile of money, because both his parents and my parents were, as far as I know, they were humble people. But neither of them, none of them, to my knowledge, did anything that we would be shameful of, in fact, we're proud of. It seems like not that big a deal, but to me it is. Because there are some people who acquire things, but a lot of good that does once you're gone. Oh, if you had given me more time, I would have written...

TI: No, that was very well-said.

FK: Thank you.

TI: I'm glad you said that. Martha, was there anything that you want to ask?

MN: Just one thing about your father's books. Do you know what happened to them?

FK: After he died, most of them, books were in the attic in the house on Boyle Avenue.

MN: Then you folks didn't burn those books.

FK: No. We ordered packing cases, wooden packing cases, and we, I don't know how many cases we filled, we sent it to Nagasaki, because they had been totally obliterated. The daigaku in Nagasaki, they had one section of their library set aside in Dad's memory. Because I guess for the Japanese, books are the thing to have. And I guess most of it... well, their entire library was wiped out with one bomb. So I never did see that library, I've been there a couple of times. But they were grateful for it. And some of them were just old stuff, but for reference, I guess, they need it.

TI: Well, Frances, thank you so much for doing this interview.

<End Segment 24> - Copyright © 2009 Densho. All Rights Reserved.