<Begin Segment 20>

MN: Now, after you got married and you folks settled in Chicago, was church a big part of your life?

YH: Yes.

MN: Which, were you still with the First Baptist?

YH: No, we went to the Methodist church, the First Methodist Church, and, gee, I don't remember how we made that transfer, but William and I were very active in the Methodist church. And William was a delegate from our church to the annual conference every year.

MN: Was this a Japanese American church?

YH: Most of the people were Japanese Americans. The local church was, but the rest of the church was mostly Caucasian.

MN: Why did you folks decide to join this congregation?

YH: I think it was because when I, my sister died, the pastor, Reverend Victor Fujio, presided at my sister's memorial service.

MN: Your sister passed away very young.

YH: Yes.

MN: What happened?

YH: She died as a result of a, of an automobile accident. She lived in Wisconsin, and she was a teacher and her husband was a doctor, and so they were going, her husband was going to minister to two small towns in Wisconsin with another physician, and they came home for Christmas vacation and they were returning back so that the other physician could take New Year's Day off. And her husband was driving too fast for the conditions of the road, 'cause it was very slippery, and he misjudged going past a truck full of steel girders and so he hit that truck on the side where my sister was sitting, and so they both had to be taken to the hospital and my sister died before they even got there, to the hospital. And it was touch and go for her husband for a long time because the nurses didn't tell him that my sister had died and... yeah.

MN: Thank you for sharing that.

YH: Yeah.

MN: You mentioned also that you had enrolled in tea ceremony in Chicago?

YH: Yes.

MN: What prompted you to enroll in tea ceremony?

YH: Well, it was being given at the, at the Resettlers office, so I thought maybe I'd like to try that. But I had to stop because you had to sit on your knees and my legs would get numb so I couldn't stand up, so I had to stop taking tea ceremony lessons.

<End Segment 20> - Copyright © 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.