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TI: Okay, so, Mike, so let's get into your life. Why don't you start by telling me when you were born and where.

MF: Well, I was born in Brooklyn, King County General Hospital, in 1937, December. And grew up in... mainly the earliest I remember, well, I remember living in, when I was in Queens. I don't remember living in Brooklyn myself.

TI: And just tell me a little bit about your parents. What were they doing when they had you?

MF: Well, my father was a mechanic, this was before the war. And my mother was just a housewife. And he worked as a mechanic for Fifth Avenue Coach Line, I think, for a while. And they were doing pretty well, my grandfather was very successful. And then what happened, when he went off to war he was drafted, went into the navy.

TI: And before you go there, so tell me a little bit about your family's immigration to the United States. Was it your grandparents?

MF: My grandparents, both my grandparents came to the United States, they immigrated from Ireland.

TI: About what year do you think?

MF: Somewhere in the 1800s, I think. Because my father was born in, I think it was 1912, and he was one of the younger of the family, because big families at that time. And I know that my grandmother, at least, was here maybe four or five years before she got married.

TI: And from Ireland, that was, your grandparents were from Ireland?

MF: Yeah, on my father's side. I have no... on my mother's side, from what I understand, both of them came over from Ireland, but they died while she was still a young girl. When I say young, maybe in her teens, early teens, so I had no recollection of them at all.

TI: Okay. And a little bit about your family, so when you were born in 1937, you were the firstborn.

MF: I was firstborn.

TI: And how many siblings did you have?

MF: I have four brothers. My brother Bob was born in 1940, and then there was the... the next brother, my brother Kieran was born in 1947 after the war. And then my brother Marty was born in 1948, and my brother John was born in 1949. They were trying for a girl, all boys, then they finally gave up. [Laughs]

TI: And there was that break between Bob and Ken because your dad was...

MF: Kieran, not Ken, Kieran. K-I-E-R-A-N, it's an Irish name, Kieran, that was my father's name.

TI: Kieran. Because he was the...

MF: He was in the service. But he actually didn't go in the service, I think he went in the service maybe around '43 or something like that. They didn't start drafting fathers until about the middle of the war.

TI: And he served in the Pacific?

MF: He was in the navy serving in the Pacific, he was on an LST, it's the landing... Landing Ship Tank, they brought tanks into the shores. And I don't know much about things. I know he fought in the battle of Okinawa. I know he was scheduled to go into the invasion of Kyushu in Japan.

<End Segment 2> - Copyright © 2016 Densho. All Rights Reserved.