<Begin Segment 3>

TI: Okay, and so when did he meet your mother?

MO: Well, actually he was gonna marry my mother's sister. That was already planned from Japan, I think, but my mother's sister and a brother, the two healthy ones out of the four, died in a big flu epidemic they had in Japan, and the two, my mother and her brother who were, who was sickly, they survived. And I don't know, it's a strange thing.

TI: So if I understand this correctly, so your father was supposed to marry...

MO: The sister.

TI: The sister, and because she died, instead he married your mother?

MO: Yeah, they asked him to take her because, in place of the one who died.

TI: And what, what was your mother's name?

MO: Suma, S-U-M-A.

TI: And her maiden name, do you know?

RO: Matsui.

MO: Matsui? Matsui.

TI: Yeah, Suma Matsui. Good. Okay. So she comes instead of her sister who died and marries your father. And so do they marry in Japan or in the United States?

MO: They must've married in Japan, huh? Yeah, probably.

TI: And tell me the age difference. Are they, was there an age difference between your mother and your father?

MO: Yes, of thirteen years.

TI: So your father was quite a bit older than...

MO: Uh-huh.

TI: And do you know how old your mother was when she came to the United States?

MO: She was, [to RO] was she eighteen like your mom? Or was my mom a little older?

RO: I don't know. Maybe.

MO: Something like eighteen.

TI: Okay, so if she's about eighteen your father, then, would be like thirty-one or so.

MO: Yeah, he was thirteen years older.

TI: So at this point, your father, does he have his business? Is he...

MO: He worked in several things. I have a picture of working in, [to RO] where was that mine or something down in Spring? It has the word Springs. Several Japanese people worked in that. Either it was a mining, or sawmill. It was a sawmill, that's what it was.

TI: And this was in Spring you said?

MO: Yeah. There's a name, [to RO] isn't it at the bottom of the picture, says Springs? In Washington somewhere. Big trees.

TI: Interesting. And so tell me, brothers and sisters. So they're now in Fremont, they get married, how many children did they have?

MO: I had an older brother who passed away, had two older brothers and then me.

TI: Okay, so tell me the names of your older brothers.

MO: My oldest brother was Yoshio Tom Tamura, and the next one is George Tamura, then me.

<End Segment 3> - Copyright © 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.