Densho Digital Repository - Flora Ninomiya Interview (Densho ID: ddr-densho-1000-473-1)

[Correct spelling of certain names, words and terms used in this interview have not been verified.]

<Begin Segment 1>

VY: Okay. Today is Wednesday, March 13, 2019, and we're here in Emeryville, California, with Flora Ninomiya. Dana Hoshide is our videographer, and my name is Virginia Yamada. So, Flora, thank you for joining us today for this interview.

FN: It's fine, I'm glad to be here.

VY: Good. Let's begin by having you tell us when you were born and what name you were given at birth.

FN: Well, I was born on April the 8th, 1935, and my name is Flora Ayako Ninomiya.

VY: And where were you born?

FN: I was born in Richmond, California.

VY: And do you have any siblings?

FN: I have five siblings. Well, I had five siblings. I have a sister, Alice, who's the oldest, I have a sister, Martha, who has passed away, I'm the third, my brother David was the fourth, and he has passed away also. I have a sister, Ann Koda, who lives in San Jose, and I have a final sister, Mary Garroway, who was born in the concentration camp in Amache, and she has also passed away. So I have two siblings.

VY: Okay. And then, so, what year was your oldest sister, Alice, born?

FN: Alice was born in 1933.

VY: Okay, and how about your youngest sister? When was she born?

FN: She was born in 1944.

VY: Okay, so roughly in the span of about twelve, eleven, twelve years, your parents had five children.

FN: Five children. No, six children.

VY: Six children, okay. And okay, all of them were probably born in Richmond except for your youngest sister.

FN: That's correct.

VY: And it sounds like everybody stayed in this area.

FN: Well, actually, my youngest sister, Mary, when she went away to school, she left Richmond and she went to school in New York. And so she married someone that she met at Cornell, and so she never really came back to live in Richmond, she lived in Washington, D.C.

VY: I see. And how about everybody else?

FN: Everybody else pretty much stayed in the Bay Area.

VY: How long has your family been in Richmond?

FN: My grandfather moved to Richmond in 1913, and he was in a partnership with two other people in 1913. So our family has been there for over a century.