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TI: Any other stories about Japan before we, we go back to Seattle? Anything else? Anything about the family in Japan that was interesting during this trip?

HL: Oh, I've got to tell you about my grandfather's brother. He was, he died when he was, what, eighty, eighty-two or eighty-three, but at eighty-one -- well, I got to go back. He was married and, and he and his wife were married for twenty-some years. She was in her fifties when she died. They had no children. And she had a sister who, they thought, well, she's been married and she hasn't had any children, so she's not gonna have any children so it would be a good match. And he was a Buddhist priest, and so they got married. Lo and behold, they had four kids.

TI: And how old were they then?

HL: She was, he was in his sixties, I think it was. She was still younger. She was probably in her forties or so. So she, and so what happened, she dies, and then there's another younger sister who's crippled, and they say, well, she's not gonna be able to get married and all that, so, so lo and behold, what happens? She's got kids and the youngest one was born when he was eighty-one years old.

TI: [Laughs] This was your grandfather's brother?

HL: Yeah.

TI: Who was a Buddhist priest?

HL: Priest, yeah. And his son is, is a Buddhist priest too, and he has the same temple.

TI: And what was the name of, of the grandfather's brother?

HL: I don't remember.

TI: This is on your mother's side or father's side?

HL: No, father's side. The Ikeda side.

TI: The Ikeda side. That's a good story. And when you were in Takamatsu, were you living with your dad's side or your mother's side?

HL: I was living with my cousin on my, no, when I was in Takamatsu I was living with my father, mother's side, with the Nambas. But when I was going to school in Marugame I was living with my cousin on my father's side.

TI: Okay. And how did they treat you? What did they think about --

HL: Oh, they were all real great to me. They were real good to me. I can't complain. They were all really nice, wonderful people.

TI: Okay, so let's get you back to Seattle. So when did you return to Seattle?

HL: I got back to Seattle in May of 1941.

TI: And having been away from Seattle for a while, what did you think of coming back to Seattle? What did Seattle seem like to you?

HL: Well it was, it was kind of different from, for me, 'cause I had left from Sprague, then while I was gone that was all demolished and they had moved to the Ritz apartment, so when I came back they were at, at the Ritz and my sister had a shop, a beauty shop on 12th Avenue. And so when I got back my mother said, well, I knew wanted to go to a college and she said, "Well, why don't you go to beauty school so that you have a trade and that you can earn your money?" And my mother's thing was always every girl has to have something she can fall back on because you never know when you're gonna have to make your own way, so I started beauty school, which I did not like, but then who am I to argue with the family? [Laughs] But I never got beyond, I never did take my state exam because the war broke out and we were evacuated and so on.

<End Segment 9> - Copyright © 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.