<Begin Segment 26>

MN: And when you got to Fort Snelling, you received a telegram.

TI: Yes. Nine days after I got there, I received a telegram to come home because my father was very, very sick. And so I came home, and I was met by Mrs. Douglas at the train station, and she said to me, "I have a very sad message to give you." And she told me that my father had taken his life. And she said my mother would be in the car. So it was a very sad homecoming.

MN: Do you know why your father took his life?

TI: Yes, because he just wouldn't go on welfare, and he was too proud to go on welfare, and he couldn't find a job. He was so distraught he had a nervous breakdown, and he took his life. He knew, being a life insurance agent, he knew that the insurance company would pay my mother. Because he had even paid the premiums while he was in camp. And he didn't buy the policy with the intention of committing suicide, so he knew that clause was in there and that they would have to pay him, pay my mother.

MN: Now, I know among Christians, suicide is considered taboo. So what did you tell people?

TI: With the Catholics more so. But with the Protestants, not as bad.

MN: So when people asked you what happened to your father, what did you tell him?

TI: Well, he had a nervous breakdown, and because he just couldn't find a job, and he had nothing to do. And it just made him so, so agitated, that he couldn't find a job. So that's the way he chose.

MN: From a Japanese cultural viewpoint, some would consider what your father did a very honorable thing, taking his life.

TI: Yes.

MN: How do you consider this?

TI: I think it's... I know he sacrificed his life for my mother. And, you know, he had been very agitated up to my wedding day. He was so nervous, he would just, oh, he would just drive himself... and, but my wedding day he was calm as a clam, I don't know what happened. But I think he thought, "Well, I'm handing over the responsibility of my daughter to Jim," so I think that was a relief for him. I really do.

MN: How long did it take you to tell your own children about your father?

TI: Oh, I couldn't tell them 'til I wrote my book, and I had to put it in my book, so that they found out.

MN: How did they take the news? How did your children take the news?

TI: Well, they never knew my father. I wished they had. My girlfriend says, "Lance looks so much like your father," and so did my mother. Here she always thought he looked so much like him. And she would even say, "Aruki tsuki demo sokkuri." And even my maid of honor, my girlfriend, she says, "You know, when I was watching Lance during the trial, he just looked so much like your dad."

MN: And, of course, the day your son Lance was born...

TI: He was born on the exact day, (five) years after my father took his life. And so my mother never said it in so many words, but I think she thinks he was a (reincarnation of my dad).

MN: Do you need to take a break?

TI: Yeah.

[Interruption]

MN: So with your father gone, how did you and your mother manage?

TI: Well, we had a rough time for about a year and a half. And during that time, the, his will had to go through probate court, and so we had to sell his office equipment, especially the steel things went to war. And so we sold six steel cabinets, filing cabinets, and we sold one of his typewriters and his adding machine, and we sold his car. And we were able to meet our bills, and I go to college. I went to Chapman College.

MN: Was that a very difficult decision for you to go back to college?

TI: No, my mother insisted that I finish my college education. So I applied to go to Whittier College first, but then I would have to stay in the dorm because I didn't have a car or anything, I didn't know how to drive then anyway. But then my mother said, "No, you can't go to Whittier because," well... and then Chapman College opened, and it was in our neighborhood, so I went there and I could go by bus.

MN: I'm gonna go back a little bit and ask you about when you got this news about your father, and then you told your husband, James, so what did he do?

TI: He got an emergency leave, and he came to help us. And it was so good because he drove us to the mortuary and made all the funeral arrangements for my father. And that cost a lot of money, too, and so we were just flat broke. And that's why we had to sell the car and the steel cabinets.

MN: And then it was also during this time that Jim, Jim's platoon went overseas and he was left behind.

TI: Yes. He was left behind, and since the war ended in August of 1945, that they mustered him out. But he says, "You know, I owe the army." So he reenlisted and went to Korea for a year.

<End Segment 26> - Copyright © 2010 Densho. All Rights Reserved.