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BN: We're at the Japanese Cultural Center of Hawaii with Jane Komeiji on Monday, April 23, 2012. Fitting that we're in the gallery that Jane was part of the team that put together almost twenty years ago, hard to believe. But we're gonna start with... we're gonna do a life history, kind of a little bit of a focus on the war years, so we're gonna start first at the beginning. And we almost always start by asking, starting to ask about parents and family. So if you can start, maybe you could tell us about your parents, their names and if you know their dates of birth and where they came from.

JK: I was born in Honolulu in the Makiki area. And the house in which I was born still stands today, and (that's) a long time ago. My father Kojiro Okamoto came from Yamaguchi-ken, Oshima-gun, Ihota, where, I understand, that the people who were soliciting workers first went (to) because it was a very poor village. My mother came from Hiroshima-ken, and they met in Hawaii, actually. Both had been widowed, and they met on their daily walks. My father walked with Mr. Yamashiro, who was his dear friend, of the Yamashiro Hotel, and my mother walked with her two daughters, and the conversation started. And my mom did not think anything about it, and she went back to Japan in 1923 at the time of the Tokyo earthquake. So they had to land in Kobe. She took her daughters to her family home, and the father said, "We'll help you take care of them, and perhaps you can get married in the village." Well, soon a letter comes from my father asking her to return. And my grandfather said, "Go if you want to." So that's how she came back, leaving her two daughters in Japan with her parents, and married my father. Their first house was in Makiki, and that's where I was born on July 7, 1925. [Laughs] Which makes me almost eighty-seven years old today.

BN: Just to go back, your father's name again was?

JK: My father's name is Kojiro.

BN: Kojiro.

JK: Yeah, and my mother is Kame, and her maiden name was Kono.

BN: But she was married.

JK: To Okamoto.

BN: But your father's name was Okamoto.

JK: Yes.

BN: But Kono is her...

JK: Maiden name.

BN: But not, you said she had, she was married before.

JK: Her name then was Kurisu. So I have two half sisters in Japan that I visit regularly, and their names were Kurisu before they got married.

BN: Are they related to the Kurisus on the Big Island?

JK: I really don't know, because my father and my mother were only married for six years, and he died very suddenly. So my mother doesn't know too much about it. But it seems to be quite a common name.

BN: That was, was there any... well, you may not know because your father died when he was so young, but I'm wondering as a widow, your mom gave a widower two daughters, if there was any sort of issue with him marrying...

JK: No. My father had been widowed, and he had one daughter who lived in Seattle with him, and he used to bring in... well, his first trip to the Pacific Northwest was taking workers to the salmon canneries in Alaska. Petersburg, Alaska. And then gradually he got away from (that job) and began shipping fish, shrimp and (other seafood) to Otani. I have records of these. And then he began shipping lumber to Hawaii. Eventually he shipped lumber on his own barge to Hawaii. And at that time he stayed at the Yamashiro Hotel. (...) My mother's husband died of tuberculosis after a (year-long) illness, but left her a little store on Beretania Street opposite Aala Park on the Beretania side. And so as they walked in the morning they first nodded and said hello, and then they began talking. My father found out that my mother was a widow. So that's how it all began.

BN: So did your father go to Washington first before coming to Hawaii?

JK: No, he came to Hawaii first, to the Hamakua Coast. It was not very much after that, that he opened a big, almost a block long store in Ola'a, ten miles, and I have a photo of that. And at that time, he used his mother's name. I think it's because he ran away. He must have run away from the plantation. He used the name of Yoshio Hamada. Hamada is his mother's name, and Yoshio, all the Hamadas had their names begin with Yoshi. And the person I know in Oshima-gun today is Yoshiaki. So he had to change his name.

BN: And then from here he went to...

JK: Then after that Big Island thing, he went to the Pacific Northwest.

BN: Do you know how long he would have been there?

JK: I don't know. I've had to piece these things together by looking at photos. And fortunately, he labeled his photos and put the dates on. So I've been able to kind of roughly gauge where he was and what he did. My mother says her marriage was very satisfying, but it was only a six year marriage. So by the time she takes care of the kids and stuff -- and we had four, there were four of us, and I'm the oldest. (She didn't ask him about many of his earlier life.)

BN: What year did they get married?

JK: Well, I was born in 1925. They married in June of 1924, and I came in July of 1925.

BN: You mentioned you were the oldest of the four.

JK: I'm the oldest.

BN: The other three...

JK: Well, one sister we lost, but my sister who lives in Hawaii today, Maude Takahashi, lives, and my brother died a few years ago.

BN: When you say the other one died...

JK: Okay, one other sister died when she was about ten. She died of complications from measles. But both she and I were taken by my uncle, my father's younger brother, who was a very successful businessman in Hilo, that my mother managed the Honolulu store. He took us home with him. So that until she got adjusted to widowhood. He wanted to help out. So I went to school partly in Hilo.

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