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TI: So going back to your father, so he had this small magazine. He was in Japan, he spent a few months there. And then when he returned, what did he do?

FD: Oh, well, he intended to continue with his magazine. However, he fell prey of, what do you call... anyway, he was asked for a big loan from a friend of his. I say against his better judgment, he agreed to cosign a note from the bank. And, well, as you might expect, his friend, who asked him to cosign, reneged on the loan, and so my father had to make good on it. And in order to do so he had to sell his business. And it was then that he decided that, working for, well, he said something like he decided that it wasn't worthwhile working for maman, that is, for money, that he decided that he would work instead for the good of people's souls. And so he went to work for a church in Los Angeles.

TI: Okay, that was the Japanese Union Church?

FD: Well, it wasn't then. At that time it was, I forgot which one it was, but the Union Church is a, what do you call that? Well, it's a union of three separate churches, small churches that got together and formed what they called the Japanese Union Church. And then they built that structure in Los Angeles, it's still standing.

TI: That's the one in Little Tokyo?

FD: In Little Tokyo, the one on San Pedro Street, just north of First.

TI: Yeah, no, I've walked by there many, many times.

FD: And according to what I've heard, he was in charge of organizing the construction of that building, because he was their so-called secretary, but today they would have called him an administrator, I think.

TI: Well, it sounds like he was probably really helpful in terms of the fundraising.

FD: Oh, yes, he did a lot of fundraising.

TI: Because of probably his business background, his connections. All those things probably helped him, or helped the church.

FD: Yes, uh-huh.

TI: So he's an administrator, not a clergyperson.

FD: No, not at that time.

TI: But yet that was his, sort of his hope to go into the clergy?

FD: Well, after, while he was the administrator, they had difficulty locating somebody, a minister to stay permanently. They had various ministers who stayed for only a year or two, and that sometimes there were gaps, and they didn't have a minister. And so my father had to give the sermons and act as a so-called lay minister, or lay pastor they called it. And so after that experience, he thought, well, why be a lay pastor, why not become a real one? And so when they finally found somebody who promised to stay indefinitely, then he felt free to leave and go to the Pacific School of Religion at Berkeley and learn to become a real minister.

TI: Now I'm curious, when he was a lay minister, were all his sermons in Japanese or did he also do English?

FD: He did English, too.

TI: Okay, so he was able to do both, which was pretty impressive for an Issei to be able to be able to do English and Japanese sermons. And so about when did your father meet your mother?

FD: It was about... well, while he was at the Union Church, my mother was attending the Bible Institute, which is now called Biola University. And the Japanese American students at the Bible Institute used to go to the Union Church to, on Sundays.

TI: Now when you say, when your father was at the Union Church, was this when he was a lay minister?

FD: Yes, when he was a lay minister.

TI: Okay.

FD: So that's how they met, when my mother started going to the Union Church.

<End Segment 3> - Copyright © 2016 Densho. All Rights Reserved.