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BY: Okay. Let's talk about your mother a little bit. What was her name?

SM: Molly Mariko Kageyama.

BY: And when and where was she born?

SM: She was born, I believe, 1919, in Hood River. [Narr. note: November 23, 1919]

BY: And did she grow up in Hood River, then?

SM: Yes, she grew up there and she went to Oregon State College and she was a few years behind Dad, and they were engaged when the executive order happened. And so they got married at the Portland Livestock building in a horse stall so they could go to the same camp.

BY: Okay. So they met in college, is that right?

SM: I think they might have even known each other before that, because his best friends were the Yasui brothers, and they bought, the three of them bought a car together. And so Dad went along with the Yasui brothers to Hood River and met Mom as the little girl hanging around. [Laughs]

BY: And then so where was your mom when Pearl Harbor happened?

SM: She was on the Oregon State campus. She had just graduated in June, and she was offered a full-time job working in the administration of the college. So she was there as a full-time professional employee.

BY: And so what happened to her then? So Pearl Harbor happened, she was at the college, and then...

SM: Well, there was great pressure from various political forces to rid the campus of any "J-A-P-S." And so her boss physically moved her back home, and drove her back home to Hood River for her safety.

BY: Okay, so she's in Hood River, she's engaged to your father who was in Portland?

SM: Yes.

BY: So what happened then? How did she ended up in the same place that he did?

SM: Well, that's when they decided to get married, because the Hood River people were being sent to Tule Lake, California, and the Portland people were being sent to Minidoka, Idaho, and so they decided to get married in the assembly center. So she had to be driven to Portland, and Min Yasui, who had not turned himself in yet but refused to go to the camps, drove Mom and he was Dad's proxy to get the marriage license at the Multnomah County courthouse. He was a lawyer so he knew how to do all this stuff. And then he took Mom, with her one suitcase, and the marriage license application to the gates of the Portland livestock building.

BY: And so they were married there, and then since they were married, then they could go to Minidoka together.

SM: Right. But then they became part of Grandpa and Grandma's family. So in the camp, it was Grandpa and Grandma Maeda, Mom and Dad, and Aunt Frances, who was Dad's older, unmarried sister. So there were five of them as a family unit.

BY: That's a great story.

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