<Begin Segment 7>

TI: How about Japanese community events like picnics or anything like that? Were there anything like that that you participated in?

JT: We had a picnic, they called it JACL, Japanese American Citizens League, they had an annual picnic. And they had, I think the landowner that had the picnic was by the name of Sperbeck. And it was a rolling hill up there east of Marysville. And it was probably, well, at least two hundred families, 150 to 200 families, Japanese. And each probably had, well, some business guests. And this is a spread. When they say picnic, Japanese food was all over the place. So they have a big spread of food, so they invite their business friends. And eventually the business friends invited their friends, and their friends invited another friend, and finally they put a stop to it. And so we don't have a picnic no more. But at one time, it was a great gathering, yeah. We had races and everything.

TI: And this was all before the war?

JT: This was way before the war, yes.

TI: Interesting. How about things like church? Did you go to church?

JT: Well, I'm not a religious person. My religion, when they (ask) "what religion are you?" and I put down "Buddhist." But I'm not, like I say, I'm not religious. I do have a religion, but I'm a board member... but our members, one time we had, probably at the peak, we had probably two hundred or more members that belonged to the Buddhist church in Marysville. Today, the Buddhist church of Marysville have about less than eighty. And we're just saying when we're gonna close the door. Because we can't, at one time, we could support a resident minister. Today, we can't support a resident minister no more. So we're under the Sacramento Buddhist church now, so we go through Bob Oshita, and we make all the arrangements through him.

TI: When you think of the Buddhist church in Marysville, when was its peak? Was it before the war or after the war, and think about the size, activities...

JT: Well, we just celebrated the hundred year of the Buddhist church of Marysville. So it started from somebody's house, inviting a minister to come. Of course, the minister had to come by train or horse and buggy in those days. And we just celebrated the hundredth year this year. And we had probably, like I say, we had two hundred people, members. And today, the young people, they're like I am, they don't believe in religion, at least in the Buddhist religion. And so when somebody dies, we just lose one member, we don't gain anybody. So we're just gradually dwindling to zero here pretty soon.

TI: Yeah, I mean, it's, that's pretty common in lots of communities around the country. You hear about not only the Buddhist churches, but the Christian churches that were pretty much Japanese before the war, they're all sort of getting smaller and smaller.

JT: That's what I understand, yeah. We're not the only religion that's going through this.

<End Segment 7> - Copyright © 2009 Densho. All Rights Reserved.