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BY: So tell me about your father. What was he like?

DR: You know, my father, sadly, he passed away when he was forty-eight. The oldest of his five (children) was twelve. I was eleven years old at that time.

BY: So what do you remember about him?

DR: Oh, he was just such a lovely guy. I mean, just so tender and just caring and loving. He used to take us on a ride very weekend, every Sunday he used to take the family out in a car and out to the country, like Kent and Auburn which seemed like a really long distance from our home. And us kids would fight in the back seat, and, of course, my mother and father would scold us, and my father would stop the car and say, "Get out. Kids, get out." But we never did, of course, that was just his way of saying, "Okay, stop it." And then he played the violin, he was a violinist with the, some youth symphony (in Japan), I'm not sure where it was, someplace in Japan. And so every Saturday evening he used to take out his violin, make us all sit there in the living room and listen to him play.

BY: Did he play classical music?

DR: He played all kinds of music, yeah. He was a very talented guy.

BY: Interesting. Did any of this, any of you or your siblings become musicians?

DR: No. But my youngest brother, it's amazing. He never took any musical lessons, he can't read music, but he can pick up any instrument, especially string, and just play it. And I don't know how that happens.

BY: It's just genetic.

DR: Must be. And then my brother Eugene, my mother wanted to become a fashion designer, and she was really a great artist. And Eugene is so artistic. [Interruption]. So he gets that from her, right.

BY: Right.

DR: And I get nothing. [Laughs]

BY: Well, one, I would guess that one of your parents was very outgoing and friendly and social?

DR: You know, I think my dad was, but I was so young when he passed away, I don't really remember that part.

BY: So I think you got that from him.

DR: I don't know.

BY: So what was your mother like?

TI: So why did your father die?

DR: Oh, he had TB, and he was in the sanitarium. And one day they decided that they were going to operate and remove part of his lung. And he died on the table; he was allergic to the anesthetic. In those days, they didn't test to see if you had any allergies or anything. And that's what happened, I mean, it was so sudden.

BY: So he went in seemingly for something that he would...

DR: Well, he was in the sanitarium, actually, for a long time. And we used to go visit him on the weekends, but us kids couldn't go inside the building, so we had to stand outside and wave to him. It was very lonely.

BY: You were eleven, you said?

DR: Well, I was eleven when he passed away.

BY: But he'd been sick for a...

DR: Yeah, at least a year, I would think, I'm not positive.

<End Segment 5> - Copyright © 2022 Densho. All Rights Reserved.