Densho Digital Archive - Yukiko Miyake Interview (denshovh-myukiko-01-0013)

<Begin Segment 13>

SY: But what was interesting is you actually met Henry Miyake, your husband, when you were eighteen years old.

YM: Uh-huh.

SY: And you met him then for your first time. Yet you were saying you were still pretty immature, still playing with dolls.

YM: That was the first time I met him because Mr. Takano still had that Takano Studio, wanted Henry and I to get together; that is, to become friends, and I think at that time I said no.

SY: Now, just going back a little bit Mr. Takano, who was he?

YM: Mr. Takano owned the Takano Studio.

SY: And what studio was that?

YM: That's the Takano Studio.

SY: What did he do?

YM: He was the owner of Takano Studio. He took pictures.

SY: Oh, so it was photographer.

YM: And then Henry came from Alaska and started working under him and...

SY: And so then Mr. Takano arranged with your grandmother for the two of you to meet?

YM: Uh-huh.

SY: Is that like an arranged marriage?

YM: Not necessarily. He was more interested in introducing us, but I wasn't interested.

SY: So when you said you said, "No," did you mean that you told your grandmother you didn't want to meet him, or that you didn't want to marry him?

YM: Gee, I don't know what I said. Probably not to marry him. I wasn't playing with dolls either.

SY: Oh. You mean by then you weren't. What were you doing?

YM: I was interested in ice skating, but I didn't know Henry could ice skate. And then one night I was going -- I wasn't really going around with this fellow, but I was going around with another fellow. I was going around with this one fellow that was really kind to me and he took me skating. I said, "Do you know how to skate, Jimmy?" And he said, "Yeah, we know how to skate." I said, "I want to go." He said, "Okay. We'll take you." And he and his brother, they had a car so they took me, but instead I didn't want to go roller skating, I wanted to go ice skating. And they didn't know how to ice skate, and I didn't want to roller skate. So that was the first time we learned how to ice skate. All of us were on the floor most of the time.

SY: Well, what made you so interested in ice skating as opposed to roller skating?

YM: I don't know. I really don't know. I just like ice skating very much. I think maybe because I knew how to roller skate a little bit, not too well, not too good either; but... and another thing about ice skating: they had music. I don't know what kind of music they had, but they had music so we, everybody that went ice skating, danced with the music and then they had instructors there, but we couldn't afford his price so most of the time somebody that knew how to ice skate would teach us. And then I think maybe Henry found out, but Henry knew how to ice skate because he came from Alaska and he was a good ice skater, and I think then I started getting interested. [Laughs]

SY: Do you think that that was actually attracted you?

YM: Yeah, I think it was his ice skating. Isn't that terrible?

SY: So if you were to do it over again, would you have picked the other guy?

YM: Jimmy? [Laughs] I think so, but Jimmy was, he was not what you would -- Henry was a very ambitious person, I think. Now, this is just my, but Jimmy was not a very ambitious person, but he was going to the University of Washington. Maybe because of that, he couldn't afford a lot of things like Henry had was working for Mr. Takano so, you know...

SY: So Henry could take you out?

YM: Uh-huh.

SY: And Jimmy could just...

YM: Jimmy couldn't.

SY: So you finally decided to marry Henry.

YM: Yeah.

SY: And at that time he was -- was he apprenticing with Mr. Takano as a photographer?

YM: Uh-huh.