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VY: I want to talk more about why your father gave up that role, but we're not quite there yet. Is there anything else about your dad in his early days? Did he serve in the military when he was in Japan?

MM: Oh, yes. He graduated from Kumamoto University, which is like the MIT, in Japan, the MIT, it's the scientific engineering school of that time. And he went there, and then after that, he did his military, two years' military service in Borneo, and it was with headhunters, he has pictures of headhunters where he was assigned to do surveying, they were surveying for roads and dams, and that's how he spent his two-year military service doing surveying work.

VY: Did he ever talk about that with you?

MM: Well, he showed the pictures, and I said, "If they were headhunters, weren't you afraid?" He said, "No, they were just people, they were very nice." So he found, you know, his assignment in that he had to wear a military outfit, he saw his pictures in the military outfit with his transit and doing whatever he was doing. But that was his interest, and he was very friendly with the people from Borneo. So he was, even though they were called headhunters, it wasn't a confrontational situation.

VY: Oh, wow, that's interesting. What happened after that?

MM: Well, after that, my father, his mother wanted the best for him and she wanted him to go to go to a Lutheran missionary kindergarten. They didn't have kindergartens in Japan, so she thought that would be interesting for him. So the people, the missionaries, really loved my dad, five years old, and they kept track of him all the way through college and military. And after the military they said, "I think you should come to the University of Pennsylvania because they have a good engineering school and that would be helpful for your career. All right. Now, between five and twenty-five, that's twenty years I've kept track of him. So they made arrangements for him to go to the University of Pennsylvania, and then he was met in San Francisco by a Lutheran minister who gave him a tour, and then put him on the train to Philadelphia. Then when he gets to Philadelphia, he stays with the niece of John Wannamaker, which is the society point. John Wannamaker was a, I forget what governmental role he had, but it was a leadership. And he owned all these upscale department stores. So he was housed with the niece and introduced to all these well-established people. And they were always kind to him because they were, he was their guest. So my Aunt Edith Fayles, as we called her, was always concerned about him. She was a maiden lady who loved having him as her charge, and introducing him to a friend because he was such a nice, friendly person.

VY: So it was her family that he would...

MM: Well, she alone. She was a maiden lady, big maiden lady. [Laughs] But, you know, you have, if you're with a Lutheran congregation, he went up to the Pocono Mountains in Pennsylvania and did surveying on some Lutheran property which they appreciated. So he endeared himself to the Lutherans that way. And that was, he was finishing off his thesis, and somehow a fire was caught and burned down, burned all his theses and he had to do it all over again.

VY: Oh, my gosh.

MM: Yeah. His stick-to-itiveness was one of his words, stick-to-itiveness, and have vision. And you can see when he writes, he says about memory and respect and dutiful, so that was always part of his well-being, but he was able to change.

VY: When did he learn English? Did he learn English in Japan?

MM: That is a very good question. I never asked him where he learned English, but he obviously knew enough English to come to the University of Pennsylvania.

VY: Yeah, and his writings were in English.

MM: Yes, but he had the help of my mother to help...

VY: Later.

MM: ...fix it up.

<End Segment 3> - Copyright © 2022 Densho. All Rights Reserved.