<Begin Segment 26>

TI: So let me, let me back up a little bit, so I get all this. So your first wife, about when did you marry her?

KY: Married her in 1953.

TI: Okay, so you married her in 1953, and you had two sons. Dennis, is he your oldest?

KY: Oldest.

TI: And then your second son's name was?

KY: Kenneth.

TI: Kenneth. And Kenneth is the one who stayed in Japan and is running this temple.

KY: This temple, yeah, Myoenji Temple.

TI: Okay, good. And your wife, you said, died when she was thirty-nine?

KY: Yeah, she died here.

TI: And so do you know about what year that was, when she died?

KY: (1969).

TI: Well, that's when you were married.

KY: Oh, married?

TI: You married in 1953...

KY: She died when she was... let me see. She was born in... maybe (1930).

TI: About ('30), okay. And earlier you mentioned that you had thought that you would return to the United States. I'm curious, when you think you're going to return, and you have two boys, when they're ready for school, did you send them to Japanese school or to American school?

KY: I was a member of the U.S. occupation forces, civilian component. And the military had their own school system. And so they went through the occupation forces, military U.S. schools, so they had a curriculum like in the U.S. And my present wife, Marrie, she used to teach in this school system for a couple of years in Japan. I don't know exactly what years they were, but about two years in Japan. That's where the connection came in. [Laughs] Met her back at Berkeley, so...

TI: Okay. So your sons went to this American school run by the occupation initially. And did you work at or did you do anything so that they also learned Japanese? Did they go to, like, Japanese school also, language school?

KY: They did not go to any special schools, special Japanese schools.

TI: And how did they learn how to speak Japanese?

KY: From their parents. I spoke English most of the time, my first wife spoke English and Japanese. And weekends associated with Japanese local people. Plus home study, diligence, I guess, in the language. But my son, our second son, of course, the one who became a preacher, he went through seminary school. But Dennis, I don't know exactly, he's pretty good now. [Laughs] I guess self-study more than anything else.

TI: You mentioned how your first wife died when she was only thirty-nine.

KY: Uh-huh.

TI: What happened? How did she die?

KY: She died of lymph cancer disease.

TI: Oh, like lymphoma or something?

KY: Yeah, yeah. Hodgkins? Anyway, it spread throughout her body, lymph system is all over the body. What they do with radiation, they conquer wherever. But it spread by that time to the lymph nodes. So she suffered a number of years. A number of years, and it seemed like she couldn't conquer it, and it got to her in the end.

TI: And so that was around 1969.

KY: Yeah.

TI: And you're still in the civil service.

KY: Yeah.

<End Segment 26> - Copyright (c) 2009 Densho. All Rights Reserved.