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TI: And tell me your mother's name.

FD: Harumi Okafuji.

TI: And where was she from?

FD: She was from Kyushu... oh, dear. I'm getting so old that I can't remember anymore. The province that Hakata is part of, what's that called?

TI: Yeah, I don't know, but that's okay.

FD: But anyway, she was inland from Hakata.

TI: And then how did she go from there to the United States?

FD: Well, she was born in the United States.

TI: Yeah, that's right.

FD: And when her mother divorced her father and decided to marry another man, she was sent to Japan because her mother's second husband didn't want to raise another man's children. So my mother and a baby boy were sent to relatives in Japan. And then when she was eighteen, she decided that she wanted to come back and join her mother.

TI: In Japan?

FD: No, over here, because her mother was in the East Bay.

TI: Oh, I see, okay. So she was left in Japan to be...

FD: Well, she was sent to Japan when her mother divorced her father and married another man with whom she'd been having an affair.

TI: I see. And so how long did she live in Japan?

FD: Until she was eighteen.

TI: And then she returned.

FD: Yeah, from the age of six to about eighteen.

TI: Okay, so although she was born in the United States, she pretty much was raised Japanese in Japan until she was eighteen. So when she comes over to the United States at eighteen, she's essentially like an eighteen-year-old Issei.

FD: Uh-huh. And then she happened to have a sister who lived in the East Bay, so she stayed with her for a while and learned how to speak English through her sister who sent her to adult school and things like that, taught her how to cook and how to clean house, or keep house in an American manner, other things. And then after she learned enough English, she thought that -- that is, my mother's elder sister -- thought that she ought to go to college, learn some more so that she could catch a good husband. [Laughs] And a lot of Japanese American women, or rather Japanese immigrant women were going to the Bible Institute. So she sent my mother to L.A. to go to that school.

TI: And that's where she met your father?

FD: Well, and from there, of course, she went to Sunday services at the Union Church and met my father.

TI: Now, was it during that time they started dating, your father and mother?

FD: Well, yeah, I suppose so. Because they got married in January of 1927.

TI: Okay. You mentioned earlier your father was first a lay minister and then started getting training at Pacific. And that was in the Bay Area?

FD: It's in Berkeley.

TI: Berkeley.

FD: It's an old school that's still there, I think.

TI: Did your mother also return to the Bay Area during this time or did she stay down in Los Angeles?

FD: She stayed in Los Angeles.

TI: Okay. So then after your father finishes his training, what did he do next?

FD: He became a minister. He became ordained, and he was assigned to a little church in Chula Vista, which was a big contrast to the big church in Los Angeles.

<End Segment 4> - Copyright © 2016 Densho. All Rights Reserved.