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TI: Let's talk now about your father. What was his name and where was he from?

VW: Okay, his name Sunao Nishimura. And he eventually assumed the name Fred here in the United States. When he was sixteen, he did come to America when he was just a kid. But from what he had told us about his, his childhood, he, his mother died when he was two, and his father died not too long after that. So he didn't have much, much ability to be under his parents. And so he was raised by his older half brother, the way we understand it. And he used to take oranges sometimes underneath, and break open the crate and pull the oranges out and eat it, and eventually they caught him. [Laughs] And so he lost that ability to eat whenever he wanted to.

TI: So it sounds like he was, as a child, a little mischievous, the he would...

VW: He was, yeah. He used to pull the hair of his half sisters and so on, and he was, he was a little tough in, growing up. And so I think the brother eventually got kind of tired of that, and so he gave him a thousand dollars to leave and go to America, and that's how my dad got to go to America.

TI: Do you know, by any chance, what part of Japan he came from?

VW: I don't know really at all. I would certainly find out now, but, I mean, it's too late.

TI: No, that's okay. But it's interesting because for his older half brother to give him that kind of money, that's quite a bit of money during that time.

VW: Oh, they had, yeah, they had money. His parents were fairly well-to-do parents. And so I suppose his brother kept all of it except for the thousand dollars that he gave my dad to come to America.

TI: So he, you said he came to America when he was sixteen.

VW: Yes.

TI: So where did he go in America after he got here?

VW: Well, headed to San Francisco right after the earthquake, the horrible earthquake in San Francisco.

TI: So this was about 1906?

VW: Yep. And he, I suppose he got in the bread lines, and so he had ability to earn, places to eat. And so that was pretty important to him. And how he got, though, from San Francisco to Denver, I'm not sure, but that's where he met my mother, in Denver. And he was a, evidently, he got into the acting business a little bit, because he became, he played the role of Hiawatha, and he has a picture in the book of him being Hiawatha. And so then they met, and they had --

TI: So let me, let me slow down a little bit here. Because, so he's in the play playing the role of Hiawatha.

VW: Yeah.

TI: So at this point, his English must have been pretty good for him to be in front of an audience in a play.

VW: He never said much about how he learned English except that he did go to elocution in the churches and learn, probably, some good parts of the English language. And he spoke the language quite well, really. Quite well. And, but, of course, that's after he'd been here a while, but... about everybody could understand him all right.

TI: Now, do you recall him ever talking about, like, friends or groups that he traveled with when he went to Denver, or what he was doing in Denver?

VW: No, except that in Denver, he was, he was, I should say manager of a cleaning establishment. And then he'd keep track of the people on where they were and what they were cleaning and what they were doing, and he kept the books for 'em, for the company (and) the people that owned the company. And then I remember him writing my mother several letters and so on. And in those letters, I could tell that he was in the mood of trying to keep the business going, and yet still write my mother. I don't know if they ever called on the telephone, probably not. And certainly not like it is today. [Laughs]

<End Segment 2> - Copyright © 2010 Densho. All Rights Reserved.