<Begin Segment 10>

TL: Did they believe that you would very likely marry a farmer also? And continue farming?

YB: Well my foster mother was, you know they are always finding someone for you. I says, "Mom, please don't pick somebody up." I'd say, "Mama, please don't pick someone out for me. If it's a tramp walking down the street and he's real nice, and kind, and handsome, I'll marry him." She says, "Don't talk like that." [Laughs] I got tired of having them pick somebody out for me. I said, "Can't we wait until we find somebody?" She says, "Well, I guess there is no other choice." And we had a convention of some sort once... oh, you have heard of the Japanese American Citizens League. Well my first late husband was the organizer of that. And he, and he also happens to be, his parents were very good friends of mine. They were in business together. When he was born, he used to come over to my foster mother's home, and come to eat dinner and fall asleep on the dinner table, always. And they'd have to wake him up and feed him. Because he was five years my senior. Then I came along later. But that year, I had already organized, what we call a Japanese American Citizens League, which is JACL. Just like Japanese Americans, no, Japanese American Citizens... Club, is what I called it. And we had just organized it for two months in our town, then along came JACL. And they said Clarence would be visiting Los Angeles to organize there first, then on the way back would stop at Santa Barbara. So Mother said, "Oh, I knew him as a baby. You better go and watch, and see what he is doing in Los Angeles. Then accompany him and come back to Santa Barbara." (Since) my brother (lived) there, I went to Los Angeles, stayed there and then took the same bus as (Clarence) to come back to Santa Barbara. And (had) quite a good visit with him. And he came back and looked up his (childhood) neighbor friend, who also became a lawyer of all those wealthy people around Santa Barbara. Just the opposite from Clarence because Clarence was beginning as a poor lawyer. But they had a grand time together. And he got to meet the mother, who used to feed him breakfast, because he used to sneak through the bedroom window and hop across, and get in through their kitchen door and have breakfast with them. And so, she was happy to see him. And (my foster) mother was doubly happy to see him. Then, later to learn that we became very good friends and married. She didn't have to worry at all. [Laughs] Yeah.

TL: Well --

<End Segment 10> - Copyright © 1998 Densho. All Rights Reserved.