<Begin Segment 24>

SY: And then why did you decide to leave?

FO: Well, the thing is, I got a call, I got a telegram from Miiko Taka that her brother had died overseas. He fell off of a bridge. In Japan, during the war, they took all the metal pieces off the bridge. And it was late at night, and he was sick, and he walked across this bridge, and he fell off of this bridge, and he fell about 15 feet. So I got a call from her, a telegram from her saying that they're gonna have a funeral for him in Chicago. So I didn't know how she knew where I was or anything, so I told my brother, "I got to go to this funeral," so my brother and I went. And we went to the funeral, and after the funeral, we came back to L.A. and asked a guy that was taking care of our home to please leave, 'cause we'd like it back. So George and I enrolled at City College. And George is the older, oldest son, so he doesn't do any dirty work, you know what I mean? So I cleaned the house, did the dishes and fed him and then my two younger siblings, Hoover and Grace, came, 'cause they wanted to graduate from L.A. High. So they came, so I handled them.

SY: You took care of the family for that period, after the war, because your parents were still in Seabrook.

FO: Seabrook, yeah. Then my mother came alone, because my dad wanted to go see some friends in Cleveland and other places, and he wanted to see Niagara Falls. So he took off by himself and Mom came back to us.

SY: And how were you supporting yourself during this time?

FO: Well, we had the GI Bill. We had some money, we had some money, but mostly it was the GI Bill. So George and I pooled our checks together.

SY: Took care of the rest of the family.

FO: Yeah, because we didn't have to pay rent, only food, right?

SY: Wow, so the house was totally paid for, huh?

FO: Yeah.

SY: And had Reverend Yamazaki come back by now?

FO: Yeah. They came back and took over the rectory there, and he used that as a hostel for these people who have no place to go. And then he helped out.

SY: So he took people in. So was he... I guess during the war, he was considered to be incarcerated just like all the other Japanese Americans, right? Even though he was the head of his church, he kept the church going at...

FO: In the camp.

SY: ...at Jerome. And then when he came back, he just restarted the church again.

FO: Here, yeah. See, because the diocese of L.A. encouraged him, and they encouraged the Bishop of Arkansas to go visit the camps and give them holy communion and stuff. And, see, there was two brothers that were Bishops. One was in Arizona and one was in Arkansas. So the two brothers, they came to each of the camps and gave them communion and stuff. And there was a missionary bishop, a Bishop Reifsneider, he was in Japan for twenty-seven years before the war. And he came to visit us to see how we were doing and stuff like that, and he gave us communion.

SY: So the church was kind of taking care of you, it seemed.

FO: Yeah.

SY: And then when Reverend Yamazaki came back to L.A., was he encouraged to by the church?

FO: Yeah.

SY: Was he helped by the church?

FO: He was encouraged. The church had asked him to come back, and to feel the atmosphere of the American people against the Japanese. So from Arkansas he came back and reported to the Bishop, and the Bishop sent them to San Francisco and other places. And he wrote back saying that the atmosphere was good.

SY: So this must have been fairly early.

FO: Early, yeah.

SY: Not the war... like you think the war had ended by then?

FO: Yeah, yeah, the war had ended by then.

SY: But they still were wondering whether they could come back to the West Coast.

FO: Yeah, because, you know, a lot of these soldiers like Inouye, the barber wouldn't cut his hair because he was... even though he was in uniform. And that's after the war.

SY: You never had experience like that?

FO: No. The only experience that I had was I didn't know what bathroom to use, "colored" or "white." I think we all had that, you know, when we first went out.

SY: When you went to... so, but you never had people who treated you badly.

FO: No.

SY: Never?

FO: Never.

SY: Wow, that's amazing.

FO: Yeah, so, you know, I consider myself lucky.

SY: Yeah.

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