<Begin Segment 15>

[Ed. note: This transcript has been edited by the narrator]

YY: But in the meantime, I got married.

VY: Let's talk about that. How did you meet your husband?

YY: It was on a ski trip. The various churches (of various denominations) got together, they were all Japanese Americans. And whoever had a car offered to drive. And we had about seven cars full of people, and they (apparently did) this every year, (...) but it was a first for me (...) to upstate New York for skiing. They had a house that (was available for use). We all (shared in cooking and cleaning chores), and they all taught us (to ski or rather, tried to. I did learn how to get up off the ground without removing skis first.)

VY: So you met your husband there, what was your husband's name?

YY: What?

VY: What was your husband's name?

YY: Oh, Tetsu. Tetsu. And that's my name, Yasuda.

VY: So tell me about your earlier life together. What kind of work did he do?

YY: He was a civil engineer, structural, and mostly (designed) piers, bridges, roads, buildings (...). He worked for this one company right after he graduated and took his exam. And then he decided he wanted to specialize in structural engineering. And so he went to night school while he worked to get his master's.

VY: So he worked for a firm in New York?

YY: Yes, and he worked for them for over forty years. I only know forty because he got a bowl, silver bowl. (...)

VY: And was he originally from New York?

YY: No, he was from Seattle, actually.

VY: So how did he find his way to New York? What happened? What happened to him during the war?

YY: What was that?

VY: What happened to him during World War II?

YY: What happened to him? Oh, you mean, after the war?

VY: Yes, and during the war. If he was in Seattle, what camp did he go to?

YY: He went where the Seattleites went.

VY: Minidoka.

YY: Right, and near Puyallup and then to Minidoka. And then when the war ended, the family didn't have a home here anymore. And so they went to New York, feeling that most of them would be able to find work more easily. (...) His sisters went (to NYC) and found a place for the family to live. (Tets) had graduated from high school by then and (...) in the army, (attended) language school (at) Camp Savage in Minnesota, and then I think they moved (the school) to Monterey so he finished up in Monterey, and then to Japan during the occupation.

VY: Did he have an opportunity to visit family from Japan while he was there?

YY: Yes, he did visit the family in Fukuoka. (...) Even after we married, we (visited) several times. (After his discharge, he attended Columbia where he graduated with a degree in civil engineering).

VY: Okay, so then by the time you met him, he was already working as a civil engineer.

YY: Yes.

VY: And how did you end up back in Seattle?

YY: How did he what?

VY: How did you both end up back in Seattle?

YY: From...

VY: Well, because you were in New York. He was originally from Seattle, but after the war, his family went to New York because there was nothing for him, for them in Seattle anymore.

YY: (The first time was shortly after we were married. TAMS, the company he worked for, got the job to design part of the freeway, from Southcenter to the International District. In his design, he had to level an area he grew up in, including the house in which he was born. This 9-month job turned into a 5-year stay, before we finally returned to New York City.)

VY: So he worked on I-5, it sounds like.

YY: (Yes, he did work on a section of I-5, but the Navy had problems they needed to solve at the Naval Port in Bangor, WA. They needed a drydock cover designed with a system to rapidly provide weather protection for refitting activities when the Trident submarine is briefly drydocked between tours at sea. Apparently, three other designs and concepts, developed by others, fell short of the naval criteria. TAMS unique cover met Trident mission requirements, and in the time remaining. Tets prepared to get the project of the ground. After five years, we were finally on our way back to New York).

VY: So it sounds like he worked on a lot of different kinds of structures and roads and bridges and piers.

<End Segment 15> - Copyright © 2021 Densho. All Rights Reserved.