<Begin Segment 27>

SY: So then, Yasu, what did you do for your social, you had all these jobs that kept you busy and you had the children, but what...

YM: Well, we had, Rick, my husband, and two or three others, we started an investment club. So that was, at the very beginning just the men met, but later on the women joined it 'cause the children were grown by then. We were together for about thirty-five years, so that was part of our social life too.

SY: Really? And what, you just invited your Japanese American friends? Is that...

YM: Pardon?

SY: You just included your JA friends in this club?

YM: Well, we had twelve couples we got together with as a group, with the bylaws and everything else. And at first we used to have, once in a while we'd have the broker come and speak to us, but they were supposed to get some stocks and study it and present it to the group. Later on it didn't continue like that, but anyway, we kept buying and selling and later on, since our children were growing up, then the ladies...

SY: Got involved.

YM: Yeah. Anyway, we got together with, and so the first meeting was at our house and I just served cake and coffee. And then the, when the ladies got involved it start to get to be like a dinner almost. [Laughs] So we would rotate the meetings. There were twelve of us, so we'd have eleven meetings and the twelfth one would be installation at a different, at a restaurant or something, so we'd rotate by having a different month every year. So we did that for thirty-five years.

SY: Who came up with this idea of having an investment club? Was that common among...

YM: It was. There was quite a few going up, actually.

SY: Really? In Los Angeles, in that area? Or all over?

YM: I don't, there were, I know of two, three other groups at St. Mary's that have their... but we made it all St. Mary's groups so that if there's some function that involved church then we'd all be involved in it and we wouldn't have absentees. So anyway, they were all from St. Mary's, and one of the members worked for a broker, the wife worked for a broker, so that helped. That helped in organizing the group.

SY: So was it, was it really more of a social group?

YM: Well, it started out to be, supposed to be something, an investment group, but there was a lot of social, you know. So every month we'd, towards the end every month we would, went to different houses, and the women would be in the kitchen and the men would be in the living room. They'd have their meeting and we'd have our gab fest. [Laughs]

SY: So the women would sort of stay separate kind of in these kinds of things.

YM: Yeah, and then at dessert time we'd get together. So we did that, like I say, for thirty-five years. And then Rick belonged to a golf club, so we had some get-togethers there. They would have family outings and stuff. But mainly our social life was around church, the church functions, and we did a lot of volunteering at church. We did, we were very involved. Both us were very involved at St. Mary's.

SY: And how about with your kids? Did you have lots of school activities with your kids too?

YM: Well, whatever, no, not that much activities 'cause I didn't belong to the PTA or anything like that. But...

SY: But did they have, did the kids get involved with the church as well, with St. Mary's?

YM: They were all, they were, girls, Judy sang in the girls' choir and the boys were acolytes. So yes, they all...

SY: So their social life was kind of around the church as well.

YM: It was. And then they had, course the boys had CAC. Now, I don't know exactly what that stands for, but it was an athletic club, organization, and they played baseball. Both of them played baseball. That time basketball wasn't as popular as it was today, it is today, so they had baseball.

SY: And it was all Japanese American league, kind of a league?

YM: Yeah, it was a, I can't remember what it stood for, but it was a Japanese league. Yeah, for the Sanseis.

SY: So they mainly hung out together then, really grew up with a lot of other --

YM: Well, some of them, but sometimes those clubs get children from different areas. It wasn't just a local thing, so there were a lot of people they never saw except at the games, a lot of players, co-players. Some of them they knew but not all of them that well.

SY: So your, that community, though, really stayed pretty tight, that Uptown community, up til when?

YM: The Uptown, yes. Well, when our children were young there were so many children of that age. That was, the baby boomers I guess they called it. We could, we filled a chapel with just children. We had to have two services, one for the adults, 'cause there were lots of children there. But they came from all over too, and as time went on people moved further away and Uptown was not where we all lived. To go to church we were all coming in from areas far as Anaheim or Irvine or Hacienda Heights or whatever.

SY: So even though adults stayed, a lot of the adults stayed, many of the children then went outside.

YM: That's right. They didn't, there are some families, thank goodness, that their children are there too, being active just like we were when we were there. We had a lot of activities at church in the old days.

SY: And the Nisei today, are they, do they, is there a, still a Nisei population that lives there?

YM: No, we're dwindling. [Laughs]

SY: But there's, St. Mary's is still a fairly strong congregation?

YM: Well, no, it has really shrunk a lot, and we're trying very hard to find some ways to get a little more involved with maybe the neighborhood or something. It's a little hard 'cause the old members have all moved away and their children, if they didn't come then they're not gonna, they're not coming back. So it's a difficult time trying to get...

SY: Keep the church...

YM: Yeah, keep growing, trying to keep it going, but it's very hard.

SY: And Father John, Father John was the minister after the war?

YM: Yes, right after the war he was for I don't know how many years. He served about forty years at the church, and we've had several ministers after Father John.

SY: And so his family pretty much, after Father John, didn't continue.

YM: Yeah, no involvement.

SY: So it's a totally different community now.

YM: That's right.

SY: But you decided to stay because it's, why did you decide to stay there in Uptown area?

YM: Well, I don't know. I'm still, I'm not in Uptown area now, but then it's still convenient for me to go. So I don't know, one of the few of our generation because it's shrinking. There aren't too many of us, our generation, there now. But we're still there. We are.

<End Segment 27> - Copyright © 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.