<Begin Segment 32>

AI: Well, one other incident in your relationship had to do with life insurance. Can you tell about that?

KM: Oh, she, shortly after Jack was transferred to camp one, I mean hospital, camp two. I was still in the camp one. And my things were in the same barrack that we stayed together, although temporary I was living with, I went back to home -- my mother's, they were in the next barrack. And so I, Jack said, "Go get that life insurance. You know, I think there's a clause in there that when I'm disabled, I don't have to pay the premium." And so that's the only reason I went to get the insurance. And she was home. And she saw me opening up the suitcase, and she could tell the insurance paper...

AI: Your mother-in-law?

KM: My mother-in-law. And then somehow she, where Dad was, but then she told him. And I went, just soon after I had taken that insurance policy and Jack had read it, and he had it put away, he, the father-in-law came and he said that, "I want that insurance policy." And Jack said, "I don't have it." And he says, "You big liar." He says Mother saw me bringing it. Well, what could he do? And it was, when he came to the hospital, it was a, between one and three, which was the rest period for TB ward. And everybody was resting and it was just as quiet as can be. And his voice got louder and louder. [Laughs] And Jack was so embarrassed and he said, "Well, here, take it." But the whole thing was, they were afraid that Jack was gonna put it into my name, 'cause they were the beneficiary. But it was just little small things like that. And here she's been telling everybody that he was the only son, and how important it was for them to take care of him, because he has to take the namesake and so forth. Yet, when it comes to insurance or anything like that, they wanted it for themselves. So whatever they said, it didn't really jive together.

And then I'm just recalling now, when Jack and I got engaged, we, the two in-laws and Jack and I went to pick the ring out. And when they were finally selecting the ring they told me to go to the car and wait so I wouldn't know what the price was. Well, I didn't know that was their purpose, but I went and I sat in the car. And then when she came home, she told my sister-in-law -- she wasn't married at that time -- that we bought Kay a ring that cost so much and so much. And then the bill came later and I saw it. And I said, "Oh, how could she tell such lies." She had doubled the price, making me feel that, you know. I didn't care. It didn't mean that much to me. And everything that she did was that way.

AI: Oh, how difficult.

KM: Even (on) the car. When her, my stepmother's insurance, life insurance, came due just before we went into camp, about maybe one year or two year. And then at that time, Jack and I was going back and forth. And my mother having visited, we were thinking, "Well, we better just put it on the shelf." It was that kind of a uncertain period. But she wanted to impress me. And so up to now he was always, my husband was coming to see me in a Greyhound bus because his old car wouldn't make it over the Grapevine and so forth into L.A. And so he came with his brand new car, and he says, I say, "Oh, where'd you get your car?" And he says, "My mother bought it for me." And I said, "Oh." And 'course later I found out that it was to impress me that he got it. She bought the car for him. That's how much she thought of him. But the time evacuation come and we were to sell that car, that's a story in itself. There was many people coming to buy the car and so the highest bidder was $600. And one day, my husband just went for errand and he had the car, and my stepmother and I was home by myself. And I went out, she couldn't speak English, so I went out and said, "What did he want, what did he come for." Well he came to see the car. And then she says he offered $600 like the other party did. And so she told me, she said, "You tell him that there's another party coming later on that they're gonna pay you, pay us $650. And if you can get that $50, I'll give you the $50." And so I thought, "Gee, I hate to lie." But anyway, just as I told him that another party was gonna come and they're gonna pay us $650, so we don't want to sell it 'til Jack came home. And then I told Jack this is what happened. He said, "Oh." And he didn't know what to say, whether they, which side to take, or what to do. And then, but anyway, my mother-in-law came out and says in Japanese she says, "Say $650. You can get $50 more." But so Jack finally said that and they were willing, and they came prepared, and they gave us, him $650. And do you know what happened to that $650? She took it. She had supposedly had bought it for him. See things, all our wedding gifts, everything was that way.

AI: Oh my. From the very beginning.

KM: Yeah, so we just had a real rough start. [Laughs]

AI: Oh dear, oh dear.

KM: Then he got sick on top of that. And everybody that we had friends, we thought that were friends, they kinda left us. And it was a real miserable time, until the missionaries come, came. That's when we realized the difference between different people.

<End Segment 32> - Copyright © 1999 Densho. All Rights Reserved.