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[Translated from Japanese]

NM: Today is June 14, 2016. We are at the Densho studio in Seattle, Washington. The narrator is Tsuchino Forrester.

TF: Yes.

NM: The interviewer is Naoko Magasis. The videographer is Dana Hoshide. Thank you for coming. I would like to start when you were born and move forward. Tsuchino Forrester is your name now. What is your birth name?

TF: It is Tsuchino Matsuo.

NM: Tsuchino Matsuo. Tsuchino is a beautiful name. You were saying it is spelled in katakana. Do you know where it came from?

TF: It came from advice from a fortune teller based on my birth date. People used to name their babies based on some sort of fortune telling back in those days in Japan. My father was told I was going to have a short life if I didn't have a name representing land and open field.

NM: Oh, dear.

TF: "Tsuchi, "soil," and "no," "field," was combined to be my given name.

NM: That's where it came from. It is such a pretty name filled with energy from nature. [Laughs]

TF: I didn't know the meaning of the name when I was a young child. I never saw anyone with a name like mine in my neighborhood. Girl's names usually had "yo" or "ko" at the end.

NM: They did.

TF: I was wondering why I ended up with such a weird name and was not happy about it. I heard about how the name was put together from my elder sister. Retrospectively, my parents' thoughts for me might be giving me a long life that I'm enjoying.

NM: You must be right.

TF: It makes me feel sentimental. [Laughs]

NM: It is such a nice name. [Laughs] Where were you born?

TF: The place was called Kasuga village. It is a city now.

NM: What prefecture it is?

TF: Fukuoka prefecture.

NM: Kasuga village in Fukuoka.

TF: Koizumi Koaza Shiromizu, Kasuga village, Fukuoka.

NM: Such a long address. [Laughs] Can I ask you when you were born?

TF: March 30th, Showa 6.

NM: What year is Showa 6?

TF: '31.

NM: 1931. I see.

TF: So, it's very simple. Three-thirty-thirty-one.

NM: Could you tell me about your village, Kasuga?

TF: Kasuga was very rural. All the families had been there for generations. Everyone knew everyone in the entire village. Whose children and how old and all. Someone will bring you home if you trip over something and fall. [Laughs] You cannot get lost. It was very quiet and peaceful.

NM: Everyone knows everyone.

TF: Yes.

NM: Did you have a lot of relatives in the village?

TF: The family kept branching out. Our ancestors had been there for a long time. My grandfather started a new family branch, and my father was second generation. He inherited the household, and the grandfather came with it. [Laughs]

NM: [Laughs] Can you tell us your parents' names?

TF: My father's name is Sakujuro, and my mother's name is Kiku.

NM: Do you have a lot of siblings?

TF: I do. People used to be encouraged to have as many children as they could in those days. [Laughs] They did not think about birth control. It was all naturally happening, and everyone had a lot of siblings.

<End Segment 1> - Copyright © 2016 Densho. All Rights Reserved.