<Begin Segment 21>

BY: Okay, so you graduated from high school, you went to the University of Washington for one year or part of a year?

MK: One year.

BY: And then you went to business college. And then you got a job with... when you say the government, what...

MK: Oh, first I worked for the Department of the Army. And the Korean War was on, so I remember I worked on the troop lists. And from there, I ended up with Fisheries.

BY: NOAA, you said, right? Was it NOAA you worked for? NOAA?

MK: Yeah. I ended up there as a contracting officer. But then George...

BY: At what point did you meet George, and when was that?

MK: Well, you know, I met him when I was dating Shobo. Because he's a good family friend, you know, George was, his best friend was Shobo's brother.

BY: Okay. So you were dating Shobo and Shobo's brother was George's friend?

MK: Best friend. And George used to hang out with the Fujii family because he had sisters and his (brothers were) older. So he knew all the brothers, but he was close to Shobo's older brother Daibo. So Shobo was like a younger brother to him. And when I was dating Shobo, he didn't have a car, we used to walk to the Buddhist church for a dance. So one day, George was in Chicago and he came back to Seattle.

BY: Oh, after the war he ended up in Chicago? Okay.

MK: And then he had a car, an old car. So he brought Shobo to pick me up for a dance, so I met him then when I was fifteen, but then I didn't date him until I was twenty.

BY: Oh, okay, but that's how you met him? Because he was Shobo's brother's friend.

MK: Yeah, he came and took (us).

BY: So he was originally from Seattle then, George was?

MK: Yeah. And he's also from a family of seven, and he's the youngest.

BY: Okay. And so then he comes back to Seattle and works, what was he doing at that time, then?

MK: He was working at the post office, I think.

BY: Okay. So you meet him and then five years later you start to date him?

MK: Uh-huh.

BY: All right. And so at that point, what were you doing and what was he doing when you started dating?

MK: I was still working for, I think I started at the agency before NOAA became... I was working, and he worked at the post office. In fact, when we got married, we both worked for two government agencies.

BY: I see, okay. And so when you met George, what were your first impressions of him at fifteen, what did you think? Were you sort of impressed because he had a car?

MK: No, because I was always used to a car because our father had a car.

BY: Oh, that's true, right.

MK: I don't know. I guess we hit it off. But then I know we dated for a while, and then he was going to go back to Chicago. So we broke up for several months, and then he changed his mind.

BY: He came back?

MK: Yeah, but I was dating others in between. [Laughs] So we ended up getting married.

BY: And so you got married in Seattle?

MK: Yeah. And my father got to throw that wedding. I mean, he always said he had five daughters, so he has to save money for the wedding. None of them got married here except me.

BY: Oh, so the other four sisters were in Japan?

MK: Yeah, two were in Japan and met their husbands, you know, Americans, over there. And the one stayed single as she vowed she would never get married.

BY: Uh-huh, is that Amy?

MK: Oh, she had eye problems. When she was four, her eyes crossed, and so that's one thing my parents spent money on, the best doctor to go (to). And the doctor here, the Japanese doctor, said, "We can't do anything here, but maybe in Japan they could do it." So my mother took three of the daughters to Japan when she was five, Amy was five or six. And two he had go, so that he had less to take care of. And the Japanese doctors said, "She's too young," they can't do anything at that time. And so she always was conscious of her eye strain. So like in any picture, she would scratch it out and put the eyeball in the middle.

BY: Oh, that's sad.

MK: And she always said she's never going to get married because of that.

BY: Of that?

MK: And she ended up, she was really strong-minded. And she should have been the boy of the family, she was real strong. And my father relied on her a lot.

BY: Oh, okay. So she ended up in Japan, though?

MK: Yeah. So she never married, but she was very generous. She even sent George to college.

BY: Wow.

MK: I mean, he has a sister, he had a single sister, but she didn't do anything like that for (George). Because (Amy couldn't) go to college, and the fact that he wanted to go after having two children... (she thought she could help make it easier for us).

BY: Wow, that's very generous.

MK: Yeah, she's very supportive. Yeah, she said she'll pay for something, and I said no. I said I'm working, and he'll work part time, and we did have two. And she wrote back and said, "They're only young once. I want them to have fun, like go to Disneyland." And so she just automatically had half of her paycheck sent to me for five years while George went to college.

BY: Wow, that's amazing.

<End Segment 21> - Copyright © 2022 Densho. All Rights Reserved.