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BY: So it sounds like your mother was very busy with school and work and taking care of the kids. Was your family involved in any Japanese community events like the church or temple or picnics or doing Obon or things like that? Do you remember any of that kind of thing as you were growing up?
DR: When we were teenagers, my sister and I, we used to dance Obon. And of course, all of us kids would hang out during that time. But as a family, no, she tried to get us to go to church.
BY: Church or temple?
DR: Church.
BY: Church, okay.
DR: The Japanese Faith Bible church, do you know that church?
TI: This was your father?
DR: My mother.
TI: Your mother.
DR: Yeah, my father was Buddhist. But before he passed away, we never used to go to temple or anything.
TI: Before he passed away, did you ever spend time down by the store?
DR: No. [Laughs]
BY: So you said, going back to Renton, you said that you loved school. Did that love for school continue through Sharples junior high school and high school and all of that?
DR: Yeah. But I had too much fun in school. I was not at the top of my class. [Laughs]
BY: So you mentioned a teacher named Mrs. Christopherson. Can you tell us about her?
DR: Oh, she was the most wonderful third-grade teacher, my god. She's the one that inspired me to become a teacher myself. Even before I got out of third grade, I already knew what I wanted to do when I grew up. But then that year before fourth grade, she passed away, which made that even a bigger desire for me. She was so gentle and so patient and just somebody you could talk to. I felt like that was my grandma, just sit and talk with her forever. A real inspiration.
BY: That's great to have somebody like that. So then, so you went to Renton and then you went to Sharples, and then what high school did you go to?
DR: Well, I finished my junior high years at Washington.
BY: Oh, because you had moved, right.
DR: Yeah. And then I went on to Garfield, the best high school in the world. [Laughs]
BY: Tom might disagree with that, maybe.
TI: Franklin High School.
DR: Oh, boo.
TI: But I went to Sharples.
DR: Okay, we have something in common.
<End Segment 12> - Copyright © 2022 Densho. All Rights Reserved.