<Begin Segment 17>

TI: So this first year in Toledo, you're with this family with three kids.

TT: Three kids.

TI: So then explain what happens next.

TT: Well, so then I'd have to get up early and get them ready for, the little ones stayed at home, but then the other two had to go to their school, so I had to help them get dressed and feed them and everything, and then I would go to school. But I really don't remember how I went to school, if I walked there or if I took a bus or what. But I did attend school every day. And then I found a part-time job outside of school at the Boy Scouts of America working in the office. Got fifty cents an hour, but that was spending money.

TI: Well, and it paid a lot better than what you were getting at the house.

TT: Yah. Well, that just gave me a little bit extra.

TI: And how did the people at Boy Scouts, how did you get that job, Boy Scouts of America?

TT: Well, I just... you know, I went to the office to see if there was any kind of odd jobs that I could do. And they had all these things, so I said, oh, I could do that, and I could take a bus, probably buses only cost five cents or something. But I'd go there and work a few hours and then take a bus home.

TI: And at this place, did it ever come up, the fact that you were Japanese?

TT: Nobody ever really, nobody called me a "Jap."

TI: I keep looking for...

TT: I know.

TI: Not even calling you a "Jap," just kind of a...

TT: I was just different.

TI: ...just curious about it. Because I think of the Boy Scouts of America, it's almost like I think of them as being very patriotic. I'm just wondering if it ever came up, because the United States is at war with Japan, and you're of Japanese ancestry.

TT: Well, they really didn't know what my ancestry was, I guess. Nobody treated, I never felt like I was treated any differently.

TI: But I'm just thinking, with an application, and you look at Takeko Yokoyama, I mean, that seems pretty obvious.

TT: Yah, "What kind of name is this?" [Laughs]

TI: Especially with all the information about Japan, I would think there was an awareness of Japan and what Japanese names looked like. Okay. Well, so going back to this first family, it was a lot of work taking care of three kids, and I think you mentioned earlier that, before this interview we were chatting that, how the husband went off...

TT: He had to go in the service, he went into the navy. And so she was home, but she was the woman of the house, and she kind of relaxed. And she felt guilty afterward, she told me. But I would have to help and take care of the kids and do the dishes and help with the cooking and everything else. Then I'd do my homework after that. And so then when my sister found out that I was staying up real late doing my homework, she said, "You better get out of there and just live with the family where you could study and you could do all the other things." So after a year, I left.

TI: And when you told the mother that you were leaving, what was her reaction? Was she sad?

TT: My mother or her mother?

TI: The mother of the three children.

TT: Well, yah. Well, they wondered, and I explained to them that my sister feels like I need more time to study and do things like that, so that was fine. But it was the little girl that was two years old, she thought I was part of their family. And so she saw me one day and she says, "I wondered when you were gonna come home again." And so we've been real close, we're still close.

<End Segment 17> - Copyright © 2015 Densho. All Rights Reserved.