<Begin Segment 8>

TI: So I want to ask a little bit about your parents, and like your father, what kind of man was he? What kind of personality did your father have?

MO: He was an extremely honest, people depended on him. They felt he was so honest, every time, like when there was a club and they had, like Shiga-ken club and, what was the other one, they always made him treasurer. [Laughs] He was a very controlled man, very, everything had to be neat and clear and good.

TI: And what about his personality? Was he kind of a quiet person?

MO: Yeah, he was quiet on a whole, but he had a real sense of humor and he was really a lot of fun sometimes. He'd make little jokes and things. He, he helped me through a lot of things. And then he always had a garden. He was amazing. He could do a lot of things. He painted the house, and the garden, he planted just a little outside thing. Yeah, kind of amazing, he did many different things.

TI: Okay.

MO: Yeah, he was, I don't know how to say it, but he tried a lot of different things. Oh, one of the things he did was fun. He made sake at home. Yeah, in those days they were, I can remember he had that, some kind of a big taru and a great big rock to put on the thing that made the juice come out. I remember him making sake. They were experimenting.

TI: And did he enjoy drinking sake?

MO: Yeah, he enjoyed that. He had, especially New Year's, we always had open house New Year's and my mother made Japanese food, and people, that was a custom in those days, maybe you're too young to know, but the family, just the fathers made the rounds and went to each house and had, drank sake for the new year. And yeah, he used to do that. And he had a garden. He did quite a bit of gardening. Course we had the dry cleaning store, so...

TI: So he kept busy, a busy man.

MO: Oh yes. He was very good at doing everything.

TI: Okay. So next I'm gonna ask about your mother and what she was like, but I'm gonna have you lean back just a little bit.

MO: How many what?

TI: Just lean back a little bit so we can see your face with the lights. Okay. So your mother, tell me about your mother. What was she like?

MO: She was a quiet, reserved, very sweet lady. And she was thirteen years younger than my dad, so was quite a bit younger, but she was always helpful, and I'm sure she tried to teach me all the good and right things. Yeah, even after, when my father was gone and we took care of my mom quite a long time, thirteen, fifteen years, something, sixteen years. She was well.

TI: Yeah, you told me a story yesterday about how, when, after she came to the United States and she had your brother, first, your oldest brother, she returned to Japan? [MO nods] So tell me, tell me that story, what she did.

MO: Well, after she had my oldest brother, Yosh, Tommy, it was funny. She enjoyed that trip back home so much and she said she saw all her classmates and she was showing off her first son, and they were all gathered around and ooh-ing and ah-ing over the baby, all this. And she enjoyed that trip so much, and she talked about that a lot, how much she enjoyed going back home.

TI: Well, to the point where, I think you said, that she almost wanted to stay there.

MO: I think she probably wanted to, missed her friends, because she had left and she was the only one that had come to America apparently.

TI: Yeah.

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