<Begin Segment 28>

SY: So when you retired or when you stopped being the administrator, that was when you retired?

CI: I did.

SY: So that was...

CI: 1989.

SY: '89. So you've been retired now for a good many years.

CI: Yes.

SY: And you've been busy? What have been your, what's been your activity?

CI: I started quilting.

SY: Really?

CI: I took quilting lessons at Harbor and I've been an avid quilter for ten years, I would say ten years. And then I got caught up in Go For Broke, which is very time consuming. But I love to quilt, which is time consuming also. Well, it's really more than a hobby.

SY: Where have you shown your quilts or where can we see your quilts?

CI: Well, there was one at the museum which they showed not too long ago, something about the threads of something or other.

SY: And it had to do with camp?

CI: Well, we donated, six of us who belonged to the South Bay Quilters Guild made this quilt. And it's a king sized quilt and it has the (museum) logo in the middle. And we thought, well, we'll raffle it, because they were trying to raise funds for the museum at that time. And the goal was three thousand dollars and then you get your name on the wall or something. So then we thought it over, the six of us, and we said, "Well, we don't want anybody to lay on the quilt. We don't want anybody's head on it. So what shall we do?" And we thought, well, we happened to go to the county bazaar or whatever, and we went to the New Home dealer, which is the sewing machine, and said, "How can we get hold of somebody at New Home?" And they said, "Oh, well, why don't you just call and ask for the vice president and he might be able to talk to you." And so I called New Home and this Japanese guy answered. He said, "What is it you want?" I said, "Well, there are six of us and we made a quilt as a fundraiser, raffle prize, but we don't want anybody to use it. So we were just wondering, since the four of the six of us have a New Home sewing machine, whether you might sponsor this quilt." And he said, "Well, I don't know, I'll have to get back to you." So anyway, he was not the Japanese guy, he was a Caucasian. So then a couple of weeks later, this guy called and said, "Hey, Ichikawa, Ichikawa," he said, "Do you know Clarence Ichikawa?" And I said, "That's my brother-in-law but he's passed away." And he said, "Which Ichikawa are you married to?" And I said, "Robert." He said, "Robert, I know him." So he gets on the phone and they talk and talk. And they're talking for about five minutes, he's calling from New Jersey or someplace back east. And finally he said, "Well, let me talk to your wife." So he said, "What is it you want?" And I said, I told him, "I don't want anybody's head to be on it and we're trying to raise some money." He said, "Well, how much money do you want to raise?" and I said, "Three thousand dollars." He said, "Oh, I can write three thousand dollars on my signature." I said, "Oh, how wonderful." So that's how it happened that we donated it to the museum, they wrote a check for three thousand dollars. So that's one of our things. And the museum still has it, and they showed it the other day for the first time in a long time.

SY: Wonderful. Did they show it --

CI: It's beautiful. It's purple, it's called Murasaki no Yume, "Purple Dream." And it has the museum logo, you know, the waves, in the middle. And six of us, we each made so many squares, and some of us put it together and some of us quilted it.

SY: And the squares, do they tell a story?

CI: No, no, no. It's a random background and it's purples and blues. But when you look at it, it looks purple.

SY: And the six of you who worked on it are all...

CI: Japanese Americans.

SY: Camp survivors? I mean...

CI: Well, no, no. Some of them weren't in camp because they're young, younger.

SY: Oh, I see.

CI: But we all belong to the South Bay Quilters Guild and they're all Niseis. So their names are on the back and there's a legend stating that we named it Murasaki no Yume, "Purple Dream." All of our names are on it, and made in Torrance. So I spend a lot of my time quilting.

SY: That's nice, though, you have something to show for all that work, and you can look at it and appreciate it, huh?

CI: Well, we were very unhappy that they didn't show it more often at the museum but they did during this last showing which was about, not quite a year ago. So Mary had a lot to do with that, Karatsu. She said, "You better show that quilt." [Laughs]

SY: Great. That's wonderful. So yeah, you've managed to stay very busy.

CI: Yeah, quilting is very labor intensive.

SY: And is this something that you have to learn how to do or you just practice?

CI: Both.

SY: Did you take classes?

CI: I did. I did take classes at Harbor, they were free to seniors. And so, and then they ran out of money. You know how they always run out of money. So after about three years, then you had to pay and the classes all just kind of went away. But until then we were meeting, oh, maybe twice a week. And then we belonged to the South Bay Quilters Guild and then we'd go to quilt shows. My husband said, "My wife could quilt twenty-four hours a day for the next one hundred years and she won't use up her fabric." [Laughs]

SY: Uh-huh.

CI: Oh, I have so much fabric. If you want any fabric, let me know.

SY: You'll be, maybe some Densho viewers will contact you. [Laughs] So this, is it sort of a social club, too, kind of?

CI: The Quilters Guild?

SY: Quilting guild, yeah?

CI: Oh, yeah, it was, it was.

<End Segment 28> - Copyright &copy; 2012 Densho. All Rights Reserved.