<Begin Segment 27>

TI: So, Kay, I've gone through all my questions, and so I'm going to open up right now, in terms of... so what have I left out? What else do you want to talk about, in terms of, you know, your life or your thoughts? Because right now we have a pretty good record of your life and what you went through, and so is there anything else that you'd like to talk about?

KK: Well, yes. I'd like to talk about my getting married to my husband who's from Hawaii. He's a native of Kona, and that's why we're here.

TI: Okay, so let me start, let me ask you the questions. So how did you meet your husband?

KK: Oh, well, when he graduated he and a bunch of boys went in the army right away, and one of those boys plus a boy from Maui, these two young men, came to L.A. because a boy from Maui was told to go to Union Church. And I was in the choir there, and that's how I met those two young men. And then it was Christmas vacation time, so then my father says I should show them around, so every day I would take the bus from -- we were out in Rodger Young Village which was out, it was a army veterans' housing Quonset huts in Griffith Park. I would have to take the bus into town, and I'd meet them and then I would take them around. And we went by street car and bus and I showed them L.A. And, because I was going to school in the Hollywood area, a lot of my classmates' families worked for television shows, etcetera, and so they would have tickets ready for us, different places... so I would take these guys and we went to shows and things, you know. And they had such a good time, when they went back they said, "When you go back to, when you go to L.A., go look up the Unos." Well, Ed and this other boy from Kona didn't come until January. Well, we lost my mother on January 19th, so when they came -- and of course I was back in school, I was only sixteen -- so I said, you know, I couldn't meet them or anything. Those two young men came all the way out to our house with flowers to say they're sorry my mother had passed away, Japanese style, you know. And I was so impressed with that, and so was my sisters and brothers and all. And then, of course, they went off to wherever they went, and my sister Amy and I wrote a few times to the three boys, but I'm not a good writer, so I didn't write very often. But every so often I'd get a letter from one of them and I'd write back. And so Paul and Ed were the two that we kind of kept in contact with.

Well, then Ed ended up going to the Korean War, so he was in Osaka before he went over to Korea. And I said, "Oh, I have a brother in Osaka." And so he looked Buddy up, and he took pictures of Buddy and the children and sent the pictures to us, and of course then we wrote, you know. And then he went to Korea. He says I never wrote to him when he was in Korea, let alone... I didn't, I'm sorry. Then he came back from Korea. He went to see them before he left Japan altogether, and so, again, he sent pictures and all. And so then I finished high school and I was going to City College, and my advisor asked me what I wanted to do when I got my nursing degree, and I says I wanted to go either up to Alaska or go overseas with a missionary. And she says, "Then you should get your degree, a baccalaureate degree." I says, "Oh, I don't have grades for that. I couldn't get in." "Oh, yes you do," she says. "You can get in. You can go up to UC." So I went up to UC Berkeley, and I did a semester and a summer there. And then I went into the school of nursing at, in San Francisco, and I get in and I settle down, and I get a telegram from UC. I was not accepted for this semester because I might, I needed one more fine arts credit. So I had to move out. But they said, "Come back in February, we're gonna have a February class." And so I stayed in San Francisco and worked at Macy's, and by correspondence I got that one credit. And so in February I went back, and we had a class of eleven students, and we're the only class, all eleven of us graduated. They had another eleven class later, but not everybody graduated, so I said we're the only class that started together and went all the way through and graduated.

TI: But going back to your husband, so Ed... so how --

KK: So then he -- I was at UC in San Francisco -- I get this letter that he was gonna go to Michigan State. And he said he could go either to UC or Michigan State, and I think I had written to him that I was engaged. Then I broke the engagement right away, 'cause I thought, "Oh, no, this is not good. I should not have done this." Anyway, by the time I wrote to him that I was not engaged he had already accepted to go to Michigan State, so on the way to Michigan State he came up. And he always brings a friend, so I had to get a double date, you know. And we went out on this date and everything. We spent the whole day together and it was very nice. Then he and his friend left to go to Michigan State, and he wrote every day, sometimes twice a day. My house mother loved him, and so she would save all his letters for me and everything. And I was also dating -- I was still dating other fellows, but I was, I had three Eds I was dating. [Laughs] Actually one was... Ed I wasn't dating because he was gone, but then the other two were Eds, and one was in the navy -- no, air force. He was in the air force and the other one was at Stanford. Anyway, there's all these Eds.

TI: And so how did you choose the Ed at Michigan?

KK: He came out three different summers to visit. Then the last summer he came out I decided, yeah, he's the one. So we wrote to each other, and we'd been writing to each other and all, but this time we really wrote and decided we would get married. And I wanted to announce my engagement before I left school, so I bought Uno bars, and I was going to just put "Kaneko" over them and pass them around, and I had written to him about that. Well then I had to go to the county hospital for communicable diseases, and, because I had no record of having had communicable diseases when I was young, they kept me an extra week there, in case I came down with something. And I didn't realize that he and my house mother had been in communication, and I was supposed to be back at Easter, it was Easter time, at the dorm, and I wasn't. Well, when I got back we had a meeting, and when they, the girls said, oh... and the girls would never let me go into the, to the room that we store our bags, because I had bags I had to go store, and oh, no, they'll take it in and they did all this and they were helping, everybody was so helpful. I didn't think anything of it. And we were at a meeting, and they said, "Kay, you have a call." So I go down, and my room was across from the house mother's, and so there was a telephone with a long cord so she could take the telephone into her room and I could take it into my room. So I took it into my room and I said, "Hello?" And he said, "This is Ed," and I didn't know which Ed it was. [Laughs] And then he says, "Is Mrs. Von Breck there?" And I says, "Well, just a minute. I don't know," and I was wondering what does he want Mrs. Von Breck for? I open the door; there was my niece, my sister-in-law, Mrs. Von Breck, and my nephew, and they had a tray with Ed's picture and a ring and a lei. He says, "I got to ask you a question," and I says, "Okay." And he asked the question and I said, "Yes," and I hear all this giggling. The girls had gone outside. They'd gone to the front desk and everybody was listening in on our, his proposal to me. And then they left, they put the ring on my finger and they left. And then I talked to him a little bit, and I said, "Oh, I have to, you know, hang up and show my ring to everybody." So I hung up and I go out to show it to them, they had the place decorated. They had punch bowl and goodies, and they had my relatives and they had flowers and everything. Everybody knew about this but me. And that's how we got engaged.

TI: Wow, what an amazing surprise engagement. Good thing you said, "Yes." [Laughs]

KK: And I had to think, "Which Ed is this?" [Laughs]

TI: Well, now it's saved for posterity. Good.

<End Segment 27> - Copyright © 2010 Densho. All Rights Reserved.