<Begin Segment 5>

TI: So let's talk a little bit about your father's work now. So we're in Thomas, Washington, which is kind of a rural, more farming community. So what kind of work did your father or your family do in Thomas?

MY: Well, right after Dad came, they went to Sumner and had a farm in Sumner. And then eventually, just a few years later, probably around 1912 or '13, they moved towards, back towards Thomas and then I got acquainted with this Mr. Leonard who had this grocery store. Well, it's gone now, but it would be right on the crossroads of 227 and... golly, that road that runs alongside the railroad track there toward the old church?

TI: Yeah, I don't know my streets.

MY: I don't even know the name of the street, whether it was a number or a name. And then, let's see.

TI: So he met this Mr. Leonard, and did he help your father get started in some way?

MY: Yeah, he hired him. And the fact that he understood both English and Japanese was a big addition to his advancing himself. So I can remember some of the ladies that were there at the time, and they'd say, well, "We'd go to the grocery store, and, of course, there weren't very many cars then," you know. And this one particular lady, she's Dutch, and her hair was just fiery red, you know, and she had a bun up here. And she was loud, you could hear her from anyplace. She just loved to talk and laugh. And she said, "Oh, yes, I remember your father." She says, "We walked from the west valley and then came across to the Thomas grocery." She says, "I would get so busy talking that I would forget what my husband told me to ask for." And so she says, "Your dad would say, 'Oh, that's okay,'" and so she said he'd go around opening up all the bottles and containers and let her smell it, so that she could choose what she was supposed to get, you know. So she says, "He saved my life," she says. "I didn't have to go home and find out again what I needed and buy what I needed."

TI: So it sounds like your father was really good with customers.

MY: Yeah.

TI: So they would come in, feel comfortable talking with him, he was really patient, so he would go around and open things up so they could try to jog their memories.

MY: Yeah.

TI: And you mentioned his ability to speak both Japanese and English. How did he pick up English?

MY: Well, we started talking about that, and I think it was probably right after he came. He spent time in Seattle before he went to Sumner, and two or three years there or so, he was probably on the streets of Nihonmachi and that area. And I don't know where else he would have learned it. I never spoke Japanese to my dad in my life, you know. My mother would say, "Mitomonai," you know, she says, "At least talk Japanese to your dad when we have company." Well, heaven sakes, when you talk to him all your life, how can you talk to anybody in another language that you never spoke to him? So us kids, I don't think there's any one of us that can say we spoke to Dad in Japanese.

TI: So back at the house when you grew up, English was pretty much the language you used?

MY: Yeah. Except, thank goodness for my mom, she refused to speak English. Because she said, she says, "It would be easy enough for me to learn, because you kids won't, you don't want to speak Japanese." But she said, "If I don't speak Japanese," she said, "you wouldn't have any culture of Japan left." So when you think about it now, and think, boy, she was really thinking ahead when she was trying to get us in, turn us in the right direction.

TI: And so when your mother would speak Japanese to you, would you speak Japanese back to her?

MY: Yeah. People think it's kind of odd, but then that's the way it was. Mom just, no, she's not gonna... so we would, us kids, we would say, "Mom, if you would talk English, we wouldn't have to speak Japanese." And she said, "Oh, that's the general idea." She said, "That's why I won't speak English."

TI: I think you're right, so that was wise. Otherwise, you wouldn't have learned...

MY: Yeah, otherwise we wouldn't be speaking any Japanese. She was way ahead of us and we didn't know it, I guess. [Laughs]

<End Segment 5> - Copyright (c) 2009 Densho. All Rights Reserved.