<Begin Segment 13>

TI: So we're back in Seattle now, and you're starting to grow up. I think when you're about five, she has another son? This is your brother.

EY: Masao.

TI: Masao. So there was a pretty big gap between you and Masao, five years?

EY: Well, there was another boy, but I think he was a stillbirth or something like that. There was another boy. But I had so much that I owed my brother. You know, I almost feel guilty that I am so comfortable, and that he, to make things easy for me, died accidentally.

TI: And how old was he when he died?

EY: Masao was thirty-two.

TI: Okay, so after the war he died. So we'll get back to Masao, let's go back to you now. Do you remember the house or the place that you grew up in? So you're in Seattle, and as a child, you were born in 1923. Now, as you were growing up, where did you live at that time?

EY: I think the only place that I remember is East Spruce. We lived one house over from where the Umemuras had a grocery store. And there were others, Japanese in the neighborhood, like Hashiguchi and other people.

TI: And so what's the street that... East Spruce, and what's the street number?

EY: Twelfth and Fourteenth.

TI: So not too far from here. It's not that far.

EY: No.

TI: And so there were several Japanese families nearby.

EY: Yeah. It was close to, even close to where Yoko, her parents lived. I didn't know at the time. At the time I was more interested in grasshoppers. [Laughs]

TI: And so what are some childhood memories? What do you remember growing up in your neighborhood? Who were your playmates?

EY: Oh, George Umemura had a sister Nobuko and Mary. But I really wasn't much of a mixer. I was more independent like my mother.

TI: So when you started school, which school did you go to?

EY: I went to Pacific School.

TI: Now, when you started school, were you able to speak English at that point, or was it all Japanese?

EY: I think I had difficulty.

TI: In that you just only spoke Japanese at that time?

EY: Yeah, my mother was always talking Japanese. And then I was pretty much at home all the time, so, yeah.

TI: And so how long did it take you to start speaking English then when you started school?

EY: I don't know whether I... I really wasn't very sensitive about grades or anything like that either. But I think I went to Maryknoll for maybe half a year or a year, and my mother was the one that made decisions. Around Easter, I was a very obedient student, and so if the sister said something, I would get on my knees and pray. My mother saw that, and she said that was no way for the boys to grow up. "If he's going to be a boy, he's got to be more independent." And so I didn't last over at Maryknoll for very long.

TI: Oh, interesting. And so the Maryknolls was the Catholic.

EY: Catholic.

TI: And so did, was your family, did they go to the Catholic church?

EY: Never.

TI: It was just the school that you went to.

EY: Just the school.

TI: But interesting, your mom thought that the way that they were treating the boys in particular wasn't the right way. So did she move you back to Pacific?

EY: I went to Pacific.

<End Segment 13> - Copyright © 2014 Densho. All Rights Reserved.