<Begin Segment 3>

TM: Well, then according to... my dad's grandpa or grandma's story, I born in the day. Well, then pretty soon my mother is get sick. That is in the Japanese, they say "rokumaku" and, that's pleurisy, I think. The water back the lung, backs up.

AI: Pleurisy.

TM: Yeah. And nowadays that's nothing to cure. They pumped out all that water, but those day they don't know about those things. And another thing is 1903, why, there aren't many doctor. So they, my dad, mother, thought the best way maybe go back to Japan and try to go to the doctor in Japan. So that's why is Mother said probably, probably I go back to Japan then.

AI: So you were born in 1903? And then...

TM: So I -- my father and mother must have came 1902 in Hawaii, then I born in August 1st, 1903. Then I think Mother is get sick in the following year. Maybe 1905 Mother took me to Japan. I don't know how I -- too many times I heard from Grandpa or Grandma. Anyway, it was springtime. And funny, I remember that, you know. We get Mother's side, Mother's side house. That's where we, we end up. [Ed. note: They lived in his mother's family home.] And those day in Japan, they never had a milk cow. And Mother and myself too have to have milk. So I remember my grandpa used to buy lots of condensed milk or sweet one. He used to, he used to buy lots of milk. And oh, gee. Empty can just pile up outside the little tree. And used to pile up next to those tree. Gee, I remember it's a big pile of those condensed milk can. [Laughs]

Well, anyway, then another thing I remember. My great -- no. Yeah, great-grandpa, it's Mother's grandpa. My mother's grandpa used to, used to take me to shrine in village. Summertime every day he used to take me out to that shrine. Yeah. I must have grown up at Mother's side and right after, went back to Japan and quite well, I think. Then Mother died the same year in September. Then after that sure was funny. Sometime I am in Father's side house and sometime I am in Mother's side house, back and forth all time. Then come to around school age, I know I stayed at the father's side house all time because my cousin is growing up and I can boss him around, this cousin. I'm the older one and younger one is younger than me so I can boss him around. Anyway, I stayed the father's side. Now I am... then after that, I grown up at father's side.

AI: Did you do much of the farm work out there when you were growing up?

TM: Farm work, yes, I used to. Yeah, I used to. When you comes around twelve years old, after school you go out there and help on the farm work. I done most thing whatever other, other boys do.

<End Segment 3> - Copyright © 1998 Densho. All Rights Reserved.