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TI: So let's now talk about your mother. What's your mother's name?

CS: Yoshiko Urakami Shimo.

TI: And where was she from?

CS: Well, she's from Okayama, but actually, her father was from Kagoshima. And did you see the movie The Last Samurai? Well, her father, my grandfather, fought under Saigo Takamori, that was the "last samurai." In the movie, they all got killed, but that wasn't true. [Laughs] Saigo survived, and so did my grandfather. And I was talking to this curator at, in the Imperial Valley, and he really knows his Kagoshima history. And I was telling him, "My grandfather must have been a coward, 'cause he didn't commit seppuku." Because if they lost, they would commit suicide. But he said, "Oh, no. The story is that Saigo Takamori gathered all the young people and said, 'The future of Japan is gonna lie in (you young men). I don't want you to commit suicide.'" So my grandfather as a prisoner was sent to Okayama to a temple. And the oshosan there took a liking to him, so sent him to school in Tokyo, which eventually became Meiji University. And when he came back, he eventually became the, of the penitentiary there, what he called the top man there.

TI: The warden?

CS: Warden, I guess, yeah.

TI: Oh, that's a good story. So on both sides, very colorful, interesting family histories. How did your mother and father meet?

CS: I don't know. I know it wasn't shashin kekkon, because they already had met in Japan, you know.

TI: But your father was in the United States first. Do you know if he came back to Japan?

CS: Yeah, well, he was, in the early 1900s, he was in the United States for, as a schoolboy and studying English. Then he went back to Japan. Then he came back, and I think my mother followed later.

TI: Okay, 'cause you were born, I'm sorry, 1919. And did you have any siblings, any brothers and sisters?

CS: My mother had to have a caesarian operation from me, and I was nine pounds at that time. And because of that, she couldn't carry any more babies. The doctor gave my father a choice. He said either my mother would die or I would die. So he chose my mother (but) we both survived.

TI: Oh. Because giving a c-section back then was very dangerous to the child?

CS: Dangerous, right. Dangerous for either one, so they had to save one. But he managed to save both of us.

TI: Oh, interesting. Because if she went through a natural childbirth, the doctor said she probably would not have survived, and the only way that she could survive would be a c-section.

CS: Caesarian, right.

TI: And then, but then the baby might die.

CS: Right.

TI: Yeah, a nine-pound baby, that was very unusual. Was there, was it a long pregnancy, or you were just a large baby?

CS: I don't know. They thought I was going to be a sumotori, but I turned out to be a squirt. [Laughs]

TI: Okay.

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