<Begin Segment 32>

SY: Is that where most of you were born?

NS: Yes, yes, before the war, most of us, most of the Japanese people all went to Japanese Hospital.

SY: And you were, where were your sisters and brothers born?

NS: In Dominguez Hills.

SY: But they were born at home?

NS: At home. My father delivered.

SY: Oh, your father delivered.

NS: Yeah. I think my oldest sister was the only one at the hospital, but the rest of 'em were, all eight of us was all born at home, my house. My father delivered. Because I remember delivering, my father delivering my sister, baby sister.

SY: Would you have to help?

NS: No. Yeah, or helping afterward to dress 'em, maybe. Because my mother was in bed. My father told me to come and give the baby bath and, "Hold the baby for me." My father was giving bath already, but I was holding the baby for her. I still remember that.

SY: I wonder when you learned how to do that.

NS: When you have twelve kids, you learn somehow. [Laughs]

SY: But he never asked anybody to help, but he did it all by himself?

NS: No. My father was real good. He really knew what to do. Well, Mama had it just like an animal or something, gosh. She had twelve kids.

SY: And she never had any problems?

NS: Well, not... she had twelve, but then nine lived, you know. It was early... what is it early...

SY: Premature.

NS: Premature baby.

SY: So then the miscarriages, though, do you know if that happened while he was trying to deliver?

NS: Yeah, I remember one of the miscarriage because she said she was bleeding, and she said, "Papa yonde chodai," ask for Papa to come home from work. So I remember that.

SY: So it wasn't as she was delivering, it was before?

NS: Yeah. So she was having a miscarriage at that time. Well, I didn't see the rest of the stuff out because my father had to clean it. But she didn't go to the hospital. She must have had a miscarriage at that time.

SY: So she never went to the hospital ever.

NS: No.

SY: Only your dad that one time with the ulcer?

NS: Uh-huh. Because I don't remember her going to the hospital. All my kids, I mean, all the family that I had.

SY: And none of your sisters and brother ever went?

NS: [Shakes head] My father delivered. I guess he was a good doctor, I guess. [Laughs] I don't know why he didn't become a doctor. Still work out in the country.

SY: Yeah. But the Japanese Hospital was, do you remember that?

NS: Yes, oh, yes.

SY: It was all Japanese doctors?

NS: Oh, yes, oh, yes. And my father's doctor was from Gardena, but he went to, he went to Japanese Hospital to take care of my father, because he's a friend of his. So during the time he was becoming a doctor, he was good friends with my father. So he knew the doctor real well, Tashiro. Dr. Tashiro, he's well-known in Gardena, or all over, actually. When you say Dr. Tashiro, everyone knew him, because he was about the only Japanese doctor that they had.

SY: It sounds like your father was very connected.

NS: Oh, yeah, he was real good friend of his.

SY: He knew a lot of, like, people in the Japanese, that were active.

NS: Yeah, yeah. He was real active. He was really, he used to help so much. Mama used to get mad because he wouldn't come home to work. He said he'd be helping community. But then he did so well, everybody liked him. It meant a lot of things for my father, I guess he liked it. He was well-known for being helpful. And then when somebody gets sick, my dad would go see him, take care of the person that's sick. You know what he used to do? He used to give enema, then the man will get well. Isn't something? "Yoku natta, Morita-san's okay now. Kaete kuru," he comes home and tells me. I said, "Oh, my goodness."

SY: So he was, he had medical skill.

NS: Well, that's why... I think he wanted to be a doctor one time, but then he never, he was so poor that... and then got married and had so many kids that he never became a doctor. I think he wanted to be a doctor. He was always looking into book things and reading about medical things. But I think he would have been a smart doctor but he didn't have the money to go to school.

<End Segment 32> - Copyright © 2012 Densho. All Rights Reserved.