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SY: Okay so, Mary, let's go way back and if you could tell me your earliest memories of your childhood. I mean, what you remember from the very...

MK: That goes back many, many years.

SY: Yeah.

MK: I guess I was always lucky because my mother really stressed education. She wanted to make sure that we went to Sunday school, I mean, we all went to public schools of course but then it seems like every time Sachi and Aki were working on the farm I got to go to some school event. But I remember that very distinctly and I used to participate in any sports that I was able to participate in. And my mother she was an amazing lady that was able to drive. I think she probably was the only Issei lady who knew how to drive there. And she would take off from her farm chores and take me and my friends to different schools so that we could play these intramural games. So that I remember very distinctly and I was always so grateful to her.

SY: Can you describe your mom a little more? I mean was she an independent woman?

MK: I don't know that she was so independent but I think that I don't know that she was not in a real happy marital relationship so all her focus was on the children. So whenever anything came up she was right there helping us. I remember when even (if) she had that language barrier but she was able to, whenever the PTA had anything she was right there helping.

SY: That's really nice and your father then what kind of --

MK: Well, he was a typical Issei man, it was up to Mama to take care of the kids but he provided okay for all of us as best he could. But I guess his way of showing us that he really cared about us was that weekends sometimes we'd go to cowboy movies or he would take us to the corner drug store to buy ice cream cones, that type of thing, strictly things like that but not any really close, close relationships.

SY: So you're real close to your mom then?

MK: Yeah, we all were.

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