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SY: And now your siblings, all your siblings you said. You just have one sister?

TF: No. I have, I collected some of that information right here. My older sister Sumiko... my mother became ill after, I think after I was born she had a lot of health issues, so my oldest sister actually almost became like a mother to me. Her name was Sumiko, and then I think it must have been after the war started, everyone wants to have an American name, so she chose the name Jeanette somewhere, I think, during camp days, I don't remember when. She was born in Delano, California, on March 17, 1924, and she passed away very early with berry aneurism on August 21. She was very active with the Buddhist church in Chicago, and it was right around the Ginza holiday. She was at work... it's interesting because my sisters, they must have had that old fashioned Japanese attitude, you go to work for a company, you stay with that company, you work with that company 'til the day you die, and, I mean, my oldest sister went to work for a company, she was always there, I think it was the only company she ever worked for. And at the end, she was quite young, but she was working towards buying into the company, I think. She had a couple of jobs. I don't ever remember her having fun. You know, when the war broke out, she was a senior. I had heard, I don't know if it's true that she might have been the valedictorian, and she was always kind of hardworking and she had a temper like my father. Outspoken, really, you know, she was like my mom to me. She used to take me to school with her when I was a child.

SY: Must have been hard when she passed away then.

TF: She had a lot of headaches and she was always taking aspirins. I was, by the time she died, I was living in California and she was in Chicago. But she went by ambulance to Rush Presbyterian emergency and they didn't find anything wrong with her. And she called my mother and I guess my mother talked her into staying and getting a checkup, and she was going to do that, and then she just went into a coma, and then she passed away within a day or so. And she didn't want to be put on any life support, so they didn't. I remember that when I went to her funeral I couldn't believe it 'cause I think just the weekend before I had seen her. I had flown there, and I couldn't believe she was just dead so suddenly. I wanted to see her. She had said, no, she wanted to be remembered as she was, she wanted her casket closed, and so just to remember that. But it was hard for me to believe she was gone until I saw her, and then once they reminded me, then I honored that. But she was wonderful to me in every way.

SY: It must have been very difficult for your mother.

TF: Oh, it was difficult for my mother, but where I really saw it was in my father. You know, Japanese parents don't hug and kiss and tell you they love you, but he, every day went to where she was buried, brought flowers, took care of her plot. And I saw the pain, the pain. And I used to, when I was young, I'd pray, "Please don't let anything happen to my parents. Let me die first." I couldn't bear the thought of my parents being gone. And then when I saw the pain of losing a child, I finally realized that's not the way it's supposed to go. 'Cause by then I had children, and I thought, no, I don't want to lose a child. I'd rather go first. So I thought... he just loved her so much. You know, she was the firstborn and she was like him. I was the baby, I was pampered more. [Laughs] She was active in the Chicago, in the Resettlers, now Japanese American Service Committee and she was very active in the Midwest Buddhist Temple as a Sunday school teacher and superintendent, and the first woman to serve on the board of the temple. She was very intense, short tempered, cleanliness and neatness were very important to her. I think that... I think of all my sisters, probably she was bitter. Because I think her dreams of going to college... she was very smart, she worked so hard.

Not only was she like a mother, but the reason I think I am here and I'm an American, I owe to her. Because when we were in camp, I didn't know this and it was my third sister, the one just above me who told me, that all our bags were packed to go to Tule Lake or one of those camps before you get sent back to Japan, because my mother was so unhappy. We were having, we're behind barbed wires, we've got machine guns pointing at us, we're treated like prisoners, and she said, "Why do we stay here? We can go back to Japan." And we were always brought up, we never in our family, it was always quiet. We never talked back to our parents. What the parents said was law in a way. But here's my feisty sister, she had turned eighteen and she was angry. She was angry at just being put in camp, she felt it was so wrong, here she is an American, and she said, "I'm not Japanese; I'm an American. I'm eighteen, I can make up my own mind. I am not going back. And so the sister above me said, "All our bags were on that truck to be shipped," and my father said, "I'm not going to separate the family. And he didn't want to leave her alone in the United States, and he had them take the bags off. So I didn't know until much later she was gone that I have her to thank for being here. Because I saw that documentary 99 Years of Love, it's about... and the producer was saying how lucky I was that I stayed here because those who went back did not have an easy time. They were not really accepted by the Japanese. And if she hadn't been that feisty personality and if she had been that dutiful daughter, my whole life would be different.

So that was my oldest sister. And she died so early, and she worked, she worked several jobs just so she could make ends meet and make everything -- she was married twice. The first husband was named George Miyata, second husband was named George Shizuru. So I thought she could never make a mistake when she said, "George." [Laughs] Romantically.

SY: [Laughs] That's true. That does slip out sometimes.

TF: So they had one child, Maxine. It was a very contentious relationship. But my brother-in-law, George, I liked him. He was with the 442nd, and he did come back, he survived. But you know, after camp, when we all... we were all separated during the war. But finally when we were all able to pool our money together and everything, we lived in one household, they lived in the basement, and I could hear the battles that would take place. And so I think, to this day I think, "It's not a good idea ever to live with your family." [Laughs] You don't want everyone to know your business. And my sister was very strong, so on the second marriage she ran that marriage, too. I think, actually, she was the boss of both marriages. She was a tough, strong lady.

SY: And very much, you say very much like your father.

TF: Very much like my father.

SY: He was tough and strong.

TF: Tough and strong, and he was the boss. In a way, she was kind of like him. My second sister is named Akiko, and she chose the name Louise. And she was born August 18, 1925, in Armona, California, and passed away on January 29, 1993, of emphysema. She was happy-go-lucky person, she had a lot of friends, and I use the term "happy-go-lucky" because the sister below her, they were good friends, and that's how she saw her. But I was the baby, so in a way, I don't know that I saw her quite that way. When I think of her, I think of her as serious, honest, doing everything by the book. An example of her honesty was when I went to visit her once when she was living -- I was in Massachusetts and I had the children, and I didn't have very much money so we took a Greyhound bus. I think we went from Massachusetts to Chicago to... so it was long. And then coming back, I had to get my bus ticket, and one of my children was just at that age limit, twelve or something, when the price goes up. But just turned, so I was thinking I'll get that cheaper ticket. She said, "I wouldn't do that because you are teaching your children that it's okay not to be honest." And I always remembered that. That was so many years ago. And so, to me, the important thing is it's me. It's what I'm gonna think of myself. For a few dollars are you gonna do that? Shouldn't do that. Do you want your children to know, for some little thing, would you want that to be known?

So I think of her always just... and the way she brought up her children, the kind of people they are. They do service; they want to help people. Christmas, you know, for Christmas I... first of all, we were Buddhist, so I didn't know about Santa Claus and everything. And then one year when I was just a little older, someone brought over a tree and presents and said, "Something from Santa." And I thought, "Santa Claus?" I never heard of Santa Claus. But, so I wasn't sure. I wrote a letter to Santa Claus to see, maybe there is a Santa Claus. Of course, there was no Santa Claus. But because of that, I suppose, when Christmas came, I was always buying my children too many things. It was just filling that sock with things and buying all kinds of things. And her children got maybe one present that they wanted, and instead, they filled bags with things and they would give it to homeless people. And they would all physically do that. I thought, isn't that better? But I couldn't do that. I mean, it was just, we're so different. But, I mean, I looked up to my sisters. They were really such good people. Let me see what else I have. [Laughs]

SY: We have to get through your sisters so we can talk more about you.

TF: Yeah. Well, she graduated from high school in Jerome relocation camp in 1943 and then she signed up for the nurse's training course offered by the government, a four-year course in St. Louis, Missouri. I don't know if it was the cadet nursing corps, whatever. After graduation she came back to Chicago, worked at St. Luke's hospital, and she married a boy from Hawaii called Frank Ichikawa, and they moved to Renton, Washington, he was an aeronautical engineer, and he was employed at Boeing for many years. Then they moved from Seattle to Bellevue. She could do anything. Even when we were in camp she'd find some crates and then make it into a beautiful little table. She was handy with everything. When I would go visit her at her home, there was a garage full of power tools. She would paint the house, she would fix just one eighth of an inch on her husband's shirt, she would use... he didn't know how to use any of it, she would do everything. I mean, she came to visit us and my husband was squeamish about, there was a mouse running around, he was saying, "Call somebody, get this." She said, "Oh, for goodness sake, I'll take care of it." [Laughs] She was very good with her hands, full of energy. Crocheting, knitting, sewing, cooking baking, anything. She never had to call for someone. And she's got two sons and one is just like her. I mean, they were building things in the house and he's doing it all by himself. And his son is the same way. Whereas his brother will call up someone to ask them to help.

And my youngest sister, the one right above me, is named Kazuko. And she chose the name May, she was born in March 13, 1927, in Armona, California, and she graduated from Denson High School while in Jerome camp in 1944. She had gone to Layton High School before we went into camp. And then comes me. My sister Kazuko is still alive, she's in Chicago, she's had a lot of problems with her heart. She's got a lot of health problems, and she's in her eighties now, but she's my only sister.

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