<Begin Segment 6>

TF: I was born November 25, 1932, the day after Thanksgiving. And I was told that a midwife who was related, I think, to my father, was the one who delivered me 'cause I didn't know.

SY: What an interesting family. And all girls.

TF: All girls. My poor dad. And I was brought up like a boy in some ways. I remember wearing boys' overalls and boys' shoes and going with my dad everywhere.

SY: Really? Were you the one that got, was the one who went, got to go with your dad or your other sisters also?

TF: Well, I think just... I just remember the few years before camp on the farm. I don't know, I kind of just followed my dad around. I remember, though, when I was really little, being placed under the grape arbor and I hated it 'cause there were worms and everything. That's when I couldn't work. But as I got older, then I would be on the, what do you call it, like a (wagon), and I'd have the horse, so I knew how to just go through the aisles and people would throw whatever it is, the food onto the cart. And then I used to cut apricots and peaches and I knew how to get them drying.

SY: So you were, all the girls sort of helped out?

TF: Oh, we all helped out.

SY: And it was, was it pretty hard work or did you do it sort of...

TF: You know, when you're young like that you don't think of it as hard work. I didn't, they probably, because I was still, when I went into camp I was nine years old. So even though I was doing, cutting apricots and peaches and helping out with some of those things, I just probably wanted to be grown up and doing what everyone else did, so I didn't think of it in terms of work. But we lived on a farmhouse, we had the outhouse. But my father built a Japanese tub, so we had Japanese bath where we scrub and clean yourself. He would build a fire.

SY: Did you ever sense, because there were four girls, that your mother and father might have... they were very happy with this four girl arrangement? Did you ever sense that...

TF: I think my dad would have liked a son, but I think I was oblivious to any of that. I mean, we were... when I think back to those farm days, and people would always admire the beautiful farmland. And whenever I look at beautiful farmland, I think, "What a lot of work." 'Cause it seemed like my father was always working night and day, there was no cutoff time. I remember... when I think of the days sometime, there's a beautiful peace to it because it is beautiful in the country. We had a ditch, and I remember the ditch being so, the water was so clean and you could see down to the dirt down below. And then I would get in and swim around and it would be all mud. I don't want to get in there now and have mud all around me, but at the time, it just seemed like such a wonderful thing to do. And you have dogs running around... but two of our dogs, one was a German shepherd and one was a small dog. They were poisoned when the war broke out. Yeah, and I always thought, god, those dogs weren't Japanese, they just had the bad luck of being owned by a Japanese family. I always felt so bad.

SY: Well, you would have to have left them.

TF: Yeah, but hopefully someone would take them. But to... yes, I didn't think as far as what would we have done with them, I think I was thinking more that, why did they have to be killed?

SY: So you did have a sense of that whole sort of racial...

TF: Oh, I don't think until then that I really noticed it. We had, on the farm we had a lot of Mexican help, so I got to really love fresh made beans and rice and all that by the Mexican families. I don't know that I ever really noticed any racial tension or the fact that I was Japanese until after the war broke out.

SY: And sort of describing the environment that you lived in, was it a lot of Japanese American farmers?

TF: No. In Hardwick, I don't remember another Japanese family, but Lemoore, Fowler, all those areas had Japanese. We would go to Hanford, I don't know how many miles that is, but we would go to Hanford to the Buddhist church. And on Sundays I remember we'd go early and then I'd take Japanese lessons. I did learn katakana a little bit. I don't think I got much past that, I didn't really get into hiragana. So Sunday was always a nice day because we would go off to, it was the day that we'd go into town. And in Hanford, I think, was it Hanford or Fresno? There was the Kumoto department store where all the farmers, they had everything.

SY: And it served the whole valley.

TF: Yes. So I remember Sundays was a very nice day of family going off and being together. The things I remember before the war were just kind of lovely, nice memories that I have.

SY: Family working together?

TF: Uh-huh. Family working together, going off to the Buddhist temple together and swimming in the ditch, playing with my dogs. Being the baby you have a lot more freedom.

SY: And during this time, your mom was pretty much helping your dad?

TF: I think my mother had a lot of health problems, and that's when my sister also took over. And I have a, I recall when we were in camp, once seeing a lot of blood, and so I don't know if she had the operation in camp or not, hysterectomy. But I know that oftentimes my sister would take me to school, that must have meant my mother was sick and she couldn't take care of me. So when she would go off to high school or grammar school... you know, it seems strange now to think of a child, a young student taking another child to school, but I remember going with her.

<End Segment 6> - Copyright © 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.