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VY: Okay. So we're back, and David, before we move on with the rest of your story, would you like to talk about Lake View Cemetery?

DS: Well, I'm glad you brought up the subject. I think it's an interesting story because it's indicative of my grandfather's intent to plant his roots in this country and to make sure that his subsequent generations are really American citizens. When he was still alive in the 19-teens, he bought six cemetery plots at Lake View Cemetery, which is right in the midst of the Seattle city limits. And it's a beautiful location overlooking the Sound as well as Lake Washington. And I think the buying of cemetery plots was very symbolic. That my grandfather wanted to plant his roots and make sure that his offspring were to stay in this country and become fully integrated into this country, even to the point where they're interred into the ground. So he bought these six cemetery plots, and my grandmother inherited the cemetery plots. And because of friends who were very good to her, she gave away -- much to the consternation of the family -- several of the cemetery plots, including the most prized one in the middle of the cemetery plot. But it was something that she felt she had to do in recognition of the gracious help that some of the families extended to her as a widow with nine children. So many of our family, including our mother and father, are buried at the Lake View Cemetery. So the cemetery plays a central role in our family's history.

VY: Are there... so it sounds like there are a lot of Sakuras there?

DS: Yes, there are. It's interesting for me to think about where I would like to be interred, here in the mountains of New Hampshire, or there's a small Japanese cemetery in Eatonville that's not well taken care of, but some there are a few tombstones that are inviting in that cemetery. And should I be interred at the Lake View Cemetery to be with the rest of my family? So in a way, I feel quite estranged from my roots from Eatonville, from Seattle, but life is filled with distancing and separation. So it's a quandary that I'll have to pay some day.

VY: Yeah, you know, that makes me think about how your father, having his family roots that he started, the family that he started in Eatonville, and when the war came along and things happened to your family, it seems like he had always intended to go back to Eatonville, but that didn't necessarily happen and we can talk about that.

DS: Well, I think we can talk about it here, so why don't we talk about that? My father, in his letters to the Eatonville Dispatch, spoke fondly about his time in Eatonville and the many friends that he made. Even to the point that after the war, he would, every Friday night, from Milwaukee, Wisconsin, on his ham radio, would contact his old friend Joe and chat with him as the sun was going down in the Pacific Northwest. This was a weekly routine for him, so he maintained contact with some of his friends at Eatonville. And it took me a long time to find out who Joe was, because as a child or a teenager I could hear my father and his ham radio shack talking with Joe. It turns out that Joe is the father of Sally McKay. Sally McKay owns a farm that she inherited from her father, and she and her husband ran a small airfield outside of Eatonville. And she does remember her father talking to Chet on the, as a ham radio operator. And I recently got a note from Sally who gave up the farm and airfield and is now retired along the coast of Washington. But Joe was a good ham radio friend of my father. So in his last farewell letter from Minidoka, he bid -- in a letter to the Eatonville Dispatch -- he bid farewell to all his friends in Eatonville. And I could paraphrase what he said, was "Someday we'll meet again. Looking forward to coming back to Eatonville," the home where he had so much joy. And as we talk about our family's trajectory, it's really sad because we never did go back. And that was a chapter that we have to close the book on, that's a book in a chapter that we have to close the pages.

VY: Yeah. The reason... I guess, and what started you on that, you and your family, on that trajectory, was the war, right?

DS: That's right. We were uprooted and sent against our will to a distant location. And as my son describes it, we became part of a diaspora while we were spread all over the United States.

VY: Yeah.

DS: And that diaspora continues, even to this day.

VY: Yeah.

<End Segment 7> - Copyright © 2022 Densho. All Rights Reserved.