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Title: Margaret Junko Morita Hiratsuka Interview
Narrator: Margaret Junko Morita Hiratsuka
Interviewer: Tom Ikeda
Location: Skokie, Illinois
Date: June 15, 2011
Densho ID: denshovh-hmargaret-01-0008

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TI: How about just childhood memories or stories that you can, you talked about your grandfather, counting pennies, what are some other things that you can remember growing up, before the war?

MH: Before the war? We used to go to Mount Rainier and Mount Baker for picnics, and we also would go for a picnic down to Lake Washington. There was a special spot we had where there were a couple rocks sticking out of the lake, and we'd go there and have our picnic. And we used to go catch crab at Alki Beach or somewhere. You put salmon heads in a basket and lower it, and the crabs would walk into it. Yeah. So we had a lot of fun together. Then I could remember going up to North Beach. Is there a North Beach?

TI: Uh-huh.

MH: And get up early in the morning and go clam digging.

TI: So these are for the, like butter clams?

MH: Yeah, there were, it'd shoot up a hole and then you know to dig there or something.

TI: Or maybe you're talking about razor clam digging, on the coast a little bit more.

MH: Maybe.

TI: They had, it's kind of a maybe about three hour drive from Seattle to the coast, and then you would have the razor clams on the coast.

MH: Yeah, 'cause, yeah, I think so 'cause my cousins always had a summer home up in North Beach, I think.

TI: How about mushroom picking, matsutake?

MH: No, I didn't go matsutake picking.

TI: Now, when you talked about things like Mount Rainier and the clam digging, the beaches, do you guys have photographs of all that? Did your, your father, like, take pictures or movies of this? A lot of the Isseis back then had, like, little movie cameras or cameras.

MH: I have some. Yeah, I have pictures when we went on picnics.

TI: Okay. So any other stories before the war, before we, because next I'm gonna talk about December 7th, but before I go there I just wanted to see, any other kind of fond memories of growing up in Seattle?

MH: I went to Washington Junior High and, after Rainier School, and that was fun, going to, there were a lot of Japanese in our class.

TI: Yeah, there's, I think of Washington, and if you stayed there which high school would you have gone to?

MH: Garfield. Yeah, my sister and brothers went to Garfield High School.

TI: Okay.

<End Segment 8> - Copyright © 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.