<Begin Segment 10>
TI: Now while you were at San Jose State, you met your husband, your future husband, Robert, Robert Ishimatsu.
DI: Because he was always with your father, Doug Izu. Because Doug was the leader and Bob would always be following. And so I loved Bob's smile and his sense of humor. And then by the junior year and senior year, everybody had more or less started to pair off. So just naturally occurred that I paired off with Bob. I'd been out with the other men, but I ended up with Bob.
TI: Was his background similar to yours? He was actually, he also went to Utah, right? He didn't go to camp.
DI: He didn't go to camp. His family went to southern Utah, 'cause his father led the family plus relatives, and they were the labor force. They volunteered as labor force for the Utah farmers. And I think they went to... I'm trying to remember a name, Logandale was one of the names. That was Nevada. In Utah it was Cedar City. And then Bob and Doug both got drafted into the army. I don't know if that was from the Nevada site or the Utah site, I don't remember. And then when we were in Sandy, Utah, the tomato plants that we ordered were from IKI Farms, and I found out later, oh, that was Bob's dad's farming operation where he grew tomato plants. Then when we came back to Mountain View, my dad ordered from IKI Farms, bell pepper plants. Then I realized, oh, that's Bob's father's farming operation. So somehow it was meant to be. [Laughs] After Bob graduated -- I graduated in '49 from San Jose State, and then Bob graduated just a quarter later, I think. So I was in spring and he was after the winter quarter. And then his father drafted him to be the accountant, to do all the bookkeeping for IKI Farms down south in Indio, California. And so right after graduation, he left for Indio. I never saw him until that summer, following summer.
TI: And what were you doing at that time, after you graduated?
DI: Well, we had decided to get married, and so we were engaged anyway. And then after he came back, during the summertime, we just prepared for the wedding and got married in August, that summer. But in the meantime, he got experience doing accounting work and all that, farm work. He was a farmer who never farmed; he was always in the office doing all the figures, the payroll. 'Cause they had to do all the borrowing of money for the farming from the banks and make sure at the end of the farming season, paid back the loan. He said that was his job, borrowing money and then paying it back.
TI: So what did your parents think of this?
DI: He didn't know the first thing about farming as such.
TI: What did your parents think of this, when you started dating Bob?
DI: Oh... I think my father was already gone by then, it was just my mother.
TI: When did your father pass away?
DI: Let's see, I graduated in '49. So he must have passed away in '48, just before I graduated. I don't like to remember figures like that, it's not in my head. I just know the events that happened.
TI: Now, your mom...
DI: Yeah, my mom... oh. I think she was very happy overall that I found somebody. 'Cause she wanted me to go to college all those years, from the very beginning she brainwashed me to go to college to find a husband, and by golly I did. And then I gave her two grandchildren while she was still alive, so she was very happy about that. Yeah, even though we lost our firstborn who was a boy, we lost him through cancer, but we had five girls after that. Gave up after the fifth. Bob says, "That's enough." He can't get up anymore at nighttime, he's too tired, for the feedings. [Laughs]
<End Segment 10> - Copyright © 2012 Densho. All Rights Reserved.