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TI: Okay, so Marian, I'm gonna start, and today's date is Wednesday, June 29, 2011, and we're in Seattle at the Densho studios. On camera we have Dana Hoshide, and then watching the interview we have your husband, Bob Ohashi, and I'm the interviewer. My name is Tom Ikeda. And so today we're here with Marian Ohashi, and so, Marian, the first question is, can you tell me when and where you were born?

MO: In Seattle, Washington, Fremont district, next door to the library, Fremont Library.

TI: And what's your birthday?

MO: July 16, 1929.

TI: 1929, so that means you are how old? You're eighty-one?

MO: One, going on eighty-two. [Laughs]

TI: Eighty-one years old. And when you said you were born in Fremont, Seattle in the Fremont neighborhood, were you born at, in a house or at a medical facility? Do you remember?

MO: I think I was home, with a, what do you call, midwife.

TI: Midwife. And what was the name given to you at birth?

MO: Marian, and I don't know if they added my Japanese name later or not. I'm not sure. But my mother's friend named me, I remember, one of our customers, so I don't know if I had a, I must've had a middle name. I don't remember at that time.

TI: But later on you had a Japanese name, you said?

MO: Yes.

TI: And what was that?

MO: It's Ayako.

TI: Ayako. And do you know where Ayako came from, how you got that?

MO: Well, I think my mother said that was one of her, either teachers or something in Japan that she remembered well.

TI: And then the name Marian came from one of the customers?

MO: One of our customers from our dry cleaning store.

TI: And do you know why she said Marian?

MO: I don't know, but that was Jimmy Durgin's mother.

RO: Really?

TI: Good.

<End Segment 1> - Copyright © 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.