<Begin Segment 8>

MN: Now, at home what kind of food did you eat?

RN: Typical Japanese food. Rice, we had rice all the time, and okazu. We never had typical Japanese food like fish cake, kamaboko and that kind of stuff. We never had none of that. All we had was meat and vegetables, and rice and tea. That's it.

MN: Where was your family getting the Japanese food?

RN: Used to have it, I guess they used to have it shipped in from Seattle, 'cause Seattle's only about, at that time I would say three hundred miles away, say, and I guess my father used to have it shipped in, ordered. I don't know how he did it, but anyway, we ate Japanese food. Well, when I say Japanese food, rice, we had, always had rice.

MN: Can you share with us about your ofuro? Who built it?

RN: Well, I still remember my father when he built that ofuro. It was a regular shed, like a, like a garage type shed, small shed. And I still remember him when they were, when they were building it. He built a tub, like a, it was a wooden tub square and on the bottom he had steel or iron plates on the bottom, and you build a fire underneath there, wood, and it will heat that iron, the iron thing, but on top of the iron or iron plate he made a, like a wooden, well, wooden stuff like my fingers, crisscrossed on wood. On top of that steel, you have to do that. That's it. And then we put the water in. I remember him, buckets and buckets of water, we had no hose in those days or what you would call faucets. It was all from the, from the well. You got to throw the bucket down in there and pull it by hand, buckets of water by hand. You'd put it in the tub. We used to have to carry it, I don't know how far it was, maybe from here to there [points], I don't know. But anyway, he put the steel plate first, I don't know what he had, then he would put this wooden crisscross thing on top of the steel there, then he would put the water in and build a fire underneath there, and that was a Japanese bath. You wash outside, you got a little metal base in the water already, and that's what, we took a bath almost every night. Wintertime no, of course, too cold, but during the summer whenever it was possible somebody would always, maybe my mother, always build a fire underneath there. And the tub was, it wasn't a very big tub. Maybe you can get two or three people in there, that's about all. But it was so small you can't stay in there and soak for any length of time. You know Japanese style, put the hot water, you rinse yourself, then you scrub yourself, then you rinse yourself off. In Seattle they had commercial types like that, but on the farm it was just that, built a fire underneath that steel plate type and the wood on top. So we kept clean.

MN: Was your family traditional, did the men go first?

RN: Well yeah, I guess so. I don't remember, but it was always that way. I guess my sister went in afterwards. After all, there's only, what, at that time I had my two older sisters and my mother, see, 'cause my younger sister, she was born in Seattle.

MN: What about your clothes? Did your mother sew your clothes?

RN: No. We bought our clothes, but it's all hand washed. It's all hand washed. You've seen those old-fashioned scrub boards, that's what they washed our clothes on all the time. No such thing as, in those days the washing machines hadn't come in yet.

MN: What about your shoes?

RN: All I know is we, I just had one pair of shoes. Summertime my father, I remember my father, he used to buy me a pair of tennis shoes, but wintertime come I had one pair of leather shoes. They were cheap leather shoes, one pair, that's it. And I remember wintertime come he used to, in those days they used to have boots, rubber boots that come about to about ankle, ankle type.

MN: On Sundays did you family go to church? [RN shakes head] Did the town of Missoula celebrate Fourth of July or other events like that?

RN: Well, I remember Fourth of July, but we never had firecrackers or anything like that. I don't even know if we ever went to a parade in Missoula. It's so small that I don't think they had a parade. But I do remember Fourth of July and the... so that's the way it was, very simple.

MN: How was the Fourth of July celebrated?

RN: I don't know. I don't know if they had firecrackers or not in town.

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