<Begin Segment 24>

MN: Let's talk about your wife. How did you meet her?

MY: Well, one of my friends that was in, he was one of the Hawthorne Y Juniors, he went to Colorado to work for a family and I guess he got to know them real well, eventually he married one of the daughters. But while he was there, they wanted him to come to Chicago to buy a truck, a used truck, so he came to Chicago to buy a truck. Well, he got the truck and he was going back to Denver. Well just about that time I had got my notice to... or induction for the service. So he says, "You ain't got long to work here, why don't you just quit your job and come with me out to Denver? You could have a little good time for a while and then you can come back and go back to the service." He said, take a month. So then I went back to Colorado with him and then he knew my wife so when they would go to dance in Denver... they used to have a YMCA there that had dances, I think it was Wednesdays or something. He'd go pick up Mary, the one I eventually got married to, so I met her about in 1945 and we didn't get married until 1950. But, see, I had gone to the service, I came back, I was working for a while. Eventually they moved from Colorado and came to L.A., then I got together with her again and we started going around and then we got married. So I was really lucky that I came back with my friend, went to Denver, and got to meet her. And it's not that we wrote to each other all the time, we did write once in a while but it's not like we were... it's just that they came back from Colorado and I had... my friend was in L.A. so eventually I was working on a fishing boat and come into town and I'd visit. And we'd go out every once in a while and he said, go. So he called up my wife, so we'd go out a few times and then after that when I'd come in town I'd call her up and we'd go out, but it's not like she was there all the time. I figured that's the kind of girl I want for my wife, so that's how we got married.

MN: And did you tell her about your life at the Shonien before you got married?

MY: She knew about it after a while. I didn't tell her right away. But I guess like when we got married, her folks wondered, how come this guy is such a poor man. He doesn't have all the money that he'd want for a son-in-law. Well, it's just that when I came out of the service one of my friends was farming, the Chino family was farming, so I went to work with them and we all farmed together. Well, we didn't make anything. Well, one of the brothers that was my best friend, they had a cousin that had a fishing boat. And it was a small fishing boat, and the cousin had told, "Come on. Why don't you guys come out?" So we went out fishing with his father and it the boat was too small to really make a lot of money. So we'd go out fishing and things, but I never did anything that was financially that great, so when I got married I was a very poor man. In fact, for our reception, my buddy, my friend, paid for the reception. We weren't even going to have a reception.

MN: Where did you get married?

MY: Las Vegas. Went to Vegas, my friend that was in Denver was out in L.A. and we drove to Vegas and got married and came back. See, he had a four unit apartment, and he was going to Colorado... back to Colorado with him in-laws and they wanted him to run their farm. So he said, "Why don't you stay in our apartment, take care of the apartment?" I said, "Oh yeah, that's great," and that's how we started out in life. That was in 1950.

<End Segment 24> - Copyright © 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.