<Begin Segment 17>

BN: Just to backtrack a little bit, when did you get married?

KS: Oh, I got married in 1963, '62 or something like that.

BN: How did you meet your wife?

KS: Okay, so then I went to the church, Centenary church. So her family went to Centenary Methodist Church, it was on 39th Street. So that's where I met her.

BN: So you were living in Pomona, so that's kind of around.

KS: Yeah. So that's where I used to socialize. See, Centenary, at that time, are you familiar with Centenary at that time? Okay, so then... I'm trying to figure out what street that was. But they were on both sides of the street.

BN: But it's south.

KS: Yeah, it was in south Los Angeles. I think it was around 39th Street or so. So they had the old building which was built in the '20s, and then the new buildings, which was built in the '50s or '60s, so we got married there. And after that, Centenary moved to Little Tokyo.

BN: That's the one I'm familiar with. Did you continue going to Centenary?

KS: No. So then that was the Methodist church, and then we went to a hakujin Methodist church in Claremont. And this church was on Foothill Avenue, and I think that church was still there. And then my wife didn't like it. My wife, her family, they were in Jerome, and I think they left Jerome after, I don't know, maybe half a year or so. We stayed in camp 'til 1945, I think they left camp in 1943 or so. So then they moved to Utah. In Utah, there's a place called Parowan, which is next to the I-15. I don't know how many Japanese there were in Parowan, but I think that creates a lot of discrimination in Utah.

BN: Where was she from before the war?

KS: My wife's family, the mother's side, her mother came from Fowler, California. Fowler is next to Fresno, or south of Fresno. And then my wife's mother was born there, I think. And then my wife's father was born in Japan. So then they got married in the '30s, and then he was working at the produce market. And when the war started, I think a lot of Japanese said the clan has to get together. So I think that's my wife's mother's family, they went to Fresno so they can go to camp together. And then from there, they went to the main Fresno assembly center, and from there to Jerome. So then from Jerome, now, they left camp earlier, maybe in 1942 or '43, and they went to Utah. So I think I faced a lot of discrimination in Utah. So then when we were living in Claremont, she did not like the idea of going to that Methodist church in Claremont. So then we went to that Holiness Church, that was in Baldwin Park, for a couple of years. And then we went to Altadena First Presbyterian church, it was a Japanese church. It's still there, Reverend Horiumi was the minister at that time. So that was a Presbyterian church.

<End Segment 17> - Copyright © 2018 Densho. All Rights Reserved.