<Begin Segment 10>

JF: And this is at Clark and Division. And that winds up being where my parents meet, at Clark and Division. Well, not really that place, but a place that was rented by Kaz Sugiyama, who, this is backtracking now, we're kicking over to Heart Mountain. My dad has been dropped off there, he winds up enjoying himself over there, too. This is right after, I guess, George Igawa's big band loses its leader and a lot of their members, they wind up leaving and this kid named Tets Bessho takes over. He was a band member, but he winds up being the band leader. And my dad and Tets were friends, evidently, and my dad becomes the lead singer for the Tets Bessho Band in camp. So there's a WRA photo of my dad singing to a group of Nisei soldiers who are on leave. So it's kind of a somber, if you look at all the faces in this photo, it's kind of a somber night, I don't know, maybe it was my dad, because my dad is also singing. He's holding a mic in the background with Tets on the guitar behind him. But yeah, so he enjoyed himself as a leader of the band there, and at these dances that they have, Kaz Sugiyama is there. And Kaz is like the best dancer in camp. And prior to that, he and my mother -- this is the connection, like the three degrees of Asian connection or whatever. Back at Venice High School, Kaz and my mother were dance partners, that's what she calls him, so that's what he is. And Kaz's mother knows that Chiz is a real good catch, and so she doesn't want to let her go. [Laughs] And she asks my mother and Kaz to come over right after school one day because she's got a special event planned for them. And they sit down and she does this mock engagement ceremony between her son, Kaz, and my mother. They're high school seniors, and she does this whole Buddhist ritual thing with the sake pouring and they share the sake cups. And my mom is, she can't believe it, because she's seen the real ceremony. And here's this... you know that Buddhist, I forgot the name of it that they used to invoke the spirits. She's got a broom handle and he's cut out these tissue paper things to be the... anyway.

BN: So frankly it's a Shinto thing.

JF: Yes, a Shinto ceremony. And so Kaz can't believe it either, and they're both smirking at each other, but they play along. My mom never told her parents ever about that. I have this video where she told me about it. It's pretty hilarious. Anyway, so they're secretly engaged from that point forward, but then along comes Pearl Harbor, 9066, the Sugiyamas wind up going to Manzanar... no, Heart Mountain, and then my mom goes to Jerome, so their relationship ends. But my dad, being a singer at Heart Mountain, Kaz being the dancer at all these dances, they'd kind of become friends. And Kaz asked him into his barrack room one day and Jack, my dad, sees all these pictures of the same girl up on the, pinned into the two-by-fours. And so he asks about her. He said, "That was my old dance partner, my girlfriend Chiz. We don't keep in touch anymore, but I think she's in Chicago. If I get out, I'll let you know where I'm at, and then I'll reestablish connection with Chiz and I'll introduce you if you're interested in meeting her." And he said, "Yeah, yeah, that'd be great." So things happened, Kaz leaves, he goes to Chicago. He gets together with my mom, I don't know how serious they are, but he writes back to my dad, who's still at Heart Mountain, and gives him his address. Says, "Don't forget, if you ever get out, come see me here."

So he does that. He gets out, he goes to this address, knocks on the door, and my mother opens the door. He recognizes her instantly from all the pictures that Kaz had in his barrack room wall. And he says, "Chiz." And she doesn't know who he is, "Who are you? Are you here to see Kaz?" And he says, "Oh, yeah, yeah, I'm here to see Kaz. I thought this was his place." She said, "Yeah, it is, but he's not here right now. He got into a little bit of trouble." And then my dad asks what kind of trouble, and is it serious? And she kind of smirks and says, "No, the jerk just got in trouble with his boss's wife." [Laughs] "And so I don't know, he's having to straighten that out," but in the meantime, he's not there anyway. So she asks if he wants... if he wants to leave a message for Kaz. So he says, "No, actually, I'm here to meet you, because Kaz said he would introduce me to you." And she says, "What's your name?" He said, "Furumura, Jack." She said, "Oh, you're that singer? Yeah, Kaz told me about you." There's a seven year difference between them, so he's older. And my mom said when she looked at him for the first time, he had these rosy red cheeks, high forehead, and then a broad face. So he looked smart. [Laughs] I guess that's a compliment.

Anyway, she is attracted to him. He asks her to dinner and she agrees and they meet later that week at her place, though, not at Kaz's place, because she's just there cleaning up for him. And so her place is at Clark and Division, and when Jack, my dad, picks her up, he's dressed in a brand new suit. And she's kind of impressed, he has this pencil thin mustache over his top lip, looks very debonair. And they go together to a nearby Japanese restaurant and they're conversing. My dad is a chatterbox, and so is my mom, so they hit it off great. The bill comes, and my dad's looking at the bill, and then the whole mood changes. [Laughs] Because without... she finds out later that my dad had spent all his wages from, I think it was a real estate firm that he working with at the time, buying this new suit and having it tailored and all that crap. And so he had money, but not enough to quite cover the cost of dinner. And so he's fishing around in his wallet, Chiz can see he's kind of distressed, and she asked, "Do you need some help with the bill?" And he says, "Yeah, just a little bit, I'll tell you later." And so she helps him out. Luckily, she had some money. And so they get out of there and he tells her what happened, and then they laugh about it, and they agree to see each other. She said they had a whirlwind courtship, and six months later, they were married. So I guess it was destined.

<End Segment 10> - Copyright © 2023 Densho. All Rights Reserved.