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TI: Share with me a little bit about their personalities, you know, first your father, what was he like, how would people describe him or how would you describe him as a person?

RO: My father first of all was a handsome man. All the women, I mean, he had problems 'cause the women would chase him and it was a real problem for my poor mother who was not a beauty but... she wasn't ugly or anything but my father was handsome. And their marriage was troubled because of his good looks and he was an excellent speaker, he had a beautiful voice. And I used to... well, first my father gave me piano lessons, I mean he insisted... when I insisted I wanted to take piano lessons I started in Poston. I used to walk the many blocks to the church and take piano lessons and I was so excited when I got back from... when we got back from Poston and I begged my father to let me continue my piano lessons 'cause I wanted to learn how to play the "12th Street Rag" is it called? Anyway, I wanted to play all the popular music. Of course my father said, "Absolutely not, if you play the piano you're playing for the church." So I had to every Sunday at two o'clock be in the chapel to start the prelude and then go out for thirty minutes while my father preached and then I had to be back exactly at this certain time to play for the offering and then play the final, you know, the last hymn. So my parents, they made sure that... well, they wanted me to become a minister's wife. They had already ordained that since I was in high school, even grammar school probably. And so when I started to go out with my friends and go out on dates, my parents were really upset that if it wasn't a man who was going into the ministry, they made sure that I couldn't... I didn't go out with him. In fact one day this was a church event and it was a dinner and the fellows had to invite a girl to this dinner so this fellow came to the door, knocked on the door, my mother answered and he wanted to ask for permission to take me to the dinner. The poor guy had the door closed on him and my parents wouldn't let me go. So when the dinner was going on I went outside and sat on this huge concrete thing. In those days they built this big concrete had a hole in it and you'd throw your cans down there. So while the dinner was going on I went out there, sat on that concrete thing and shivered all night long and I refused to go in the house. And so my parents got so worried they called this friend of theirs, a church member. She came and picked me up and I went and slept at her house that night. I was so angry at my parents for not letting me go out with this one fellow and they didn't want me to go out with him because he was not studying to be a minister.

TI: It's so interesting that your... I mean maybe it's not, maybe it makes sense, but both your parents rebelled against their parents and yet they were so strict with you. It's almost like you would think well, I wonder if they would be different because of their personal experiences. But they were also very strict.

RO: They were and the reason why was they wanted someone in their family, the four children, someone had to become a minister. My three brothers rebelled. They were not going to become ministers. So the only thing left was okay, there's one daughter left, maybe she could become a -- well, she's to be the minister's wife then. And that was --

TI: And that's interesting too that your mother didn't... if she wanted the minister in the family, why not have you as a minister rather than a minister's wife? I mean, she was an ordained minister.

RO: That was one thing I would have never... I would have fought her tooth and nail if it were that. My mother did one thing that puzzled me and to this day I can still visualize the scene. I was in high school, I think I was a sophomore. And she was a very dedicated Christian and so every morning she would be on her knees in my father's study where there was a bed and she would be praying. And she called me in one time and she was praying that God would take her life so that I could be a good Christian. And I was kneeling with her and I got up and I shook her and said, "No, Mom, don't say that." I was so shaken that she was going to die so that I could become a Christian and hopefully a minister's wife I guess.

TI: Let me ask about that so I'm curious. Was it because she wanted you to go through some hardship and through that hardship you would become a more devout Christian? Or what was the thinking? I'm trying to understand why she would say that.

RO: Well, she was getting desperate because none of us were becoming devoted Christians, you know. We were all sort of rebelling and it was hopeless. Well, first of all my two younger brothers, my parents had bigger dreams for them. My brother who is two years younger than me he was going to be a doctor. And the youngest, Dan, who was born in the Santa Anita racetrack, the stadium, they had hopes for him to becoming a professor of some kind, go and become a... not an MD but a professor. So my two poor, two younger brothers had their destiny already my parents were hoping that they would one be a doctor, one be a professor. And my older brother, they didn't really push him for anything so the only one left to become, you know, related to a church was me. And obviously I wasn't going to be a minister so they pushed me to be a minister's wife.

TI: That's interesting. So going back, we're just talking about your parents and what they were like and you started off talking about your father, very good looking, really good speaker, lots of women were attracted to him. What about personality? I mean when he was with you was he more strict or was he kind of happy or how would you describe him?

RO: That's an interesting question, Tom, because he was very athletic. He played for some Japanese team. He was a baseball player and an excellent swimmer. He took us out to the Hayward swimming pool and I was astounded when I saw him swim across the swimming pool. I was in high school at the time I think and I didn't realize what an excellent athlete he was. And then I found out of course years later he actually played for a professional team in Japan. My mother on the other hand was also very athletic. She was a tennis player and quite accomplished I found out. Anyway, so we were, all of us, my two, well, we were all interested in sports which my father was very upset that I would go out there and play basketball with the boys, the teenage, my friends. I'd be the only girl out there playing basketball with them and then we'd have church picnics, I'd be the only girl out there playing baseball and football. So my parents got very concerned about this tomboy kid that they had, this girl that they wanted to become a minister's wife and here I was out there playing with all... only girls always playing with all the boys. 'Cause I just loved sports. I just loved playing, even football and I get teased to this day about playing football one time and I being the only girl on the team I grabbed his guy and lifted him off the ground apparently spun him around and dropped him. And I still to this day get teased I see this fellow once in a while, the fellow who was playing also, not the actual person I spun around and dropped but --

TI: But they won't let you forget that.

RO: They won't let me forget that.

TI: Oh, that's funny.

RO: So anyway my father was... he wasn't as physical or expressive as my mother was but when I turned sixteen he knocked on my door one evening, gave me a birthday card. And I was so touched that my father would remember. And years later when just before my dad was killed in an automobile accident, we talked on the phone because I was trying to reconnect with him. Because it's a long story but anyway, he told me over the phone, he said, "Yoshiko, I love you." And it was like... I'd never heard my father say those words to me and I told him, "And I love you too, Dad, thanks for everything." And a few weeks later he was gone, he was killed in an auto accident.

TI: But it was so fortunate that you at least had that conversation.

RO: Absolutely, yeah. I admired my father for what he... I knew a little bit about his background, I had seen him swim and do all those things, I knew he was very athletic and I'd heard him preach.

<End Segment 4> - Copyright © 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.