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DG: So tell me about your getting engaged.
KS: Oh, that was quite a few years later. We had... see Toru was out of school right after I started school. He, he wasn't at the University. I didn't start really going around with him until the following year when he did go to school. He had to stay out for a year. His family's farm must have had a few reverses that year and he stayed out of school for one year.
DG: So you were going together then?
KS: Not really, no, no. I think he was going around with somebody else at that time. But then when he went, came back and started school again, we started going. And, and like I mentioned before, there, our Fuyokai group at the University was essentially a social group, and so we would sponsor a mixer where boys and girls all got together and there'd be some refreshments and there'd be some music and most of the people danced and others just sat and talked and it was just a time to get together.
DG: Did you hold hands in public?
KS: Oh, I'm sure we did. [Laughs] I'm sure, because...
DG: I thought a lot of Japanese were shy about that kind of stuff.
KS: Oh, no. I don't, I can't say we were shy. [Laughs] Yeah, very much in love.
DG: You were telling me the process of the, the engagement.
KS: Oh, I, I really, I should remember exactly when it was that Toru asked me to marry him, but I know it was in the summer time when he came to see me. And he had a, a little package in his pocket and he took it out and there it was. A little, it was a ring with -- I shouldn't say a little diamond, but it was the most beautiful diamond you ever saw. [Laughs] That was when we became engaged and we told both of our parents about it and so... it wasn't necessary, but I think the parental group felt a need. There was a custom in the Japanese community where the girl's parents choose an outside couple to act as a sort of a...
TS: Go-between.
KS: Go-between. And that was, that was exactly the terminology that was used. I never could quite figure out what that "go-between" means. It meant that one went to the other. I don't know. Anyway.
TS: Baishakunin.
KS: Baishakunin. Maybe that's the equivalent. But my mother asked Mr. and Mrs. Seto who were, whom she had known for oh, at least (20) years prior. And to be representatives for her and Toru's father had Mr. and Mrs. Semba who were also very good friends of Toru's family for many, many years. And they were both Tacoma people so they both knew each other, and when that was settled Toru's father arranged a dinner party at the, at a restaurant called Gyokko Ken and there was about oh, twenty-five or so people who were invited and they were, those in my family that could come, and those in Toru's family that could come and, and Mr. and Mrs. Seto and Mr. and Mrs. Semba. And so that was our formal engagement. And I think that something like that happened amongst most Nisei couples. As far as I was concerned, in Fuyokai, we had a little so-called custom, and it was borrowed from the sororities on campus. The engaged girl goes and buys a large box of chocolates and runs around the table and everybody gets a piece of candy. So those were some of the little things that we did when we were engaged.
DG: This was, so, the summer of '41?
KS: Yes. Summer and fall of '41.
DG: And you went back to school.
KS: Yes.
DG: And then you went into law school.
KS: Yes, he was in law school at that time.
TS: Third year of law school.
DG: Oh, third year of law school. Okay, and then?
KS: And we were planning to get married when he finished law school and by then I would have graduated. That was my last year in the University and I would have graduated. I knew I had a job waiting for me when I finished. Standard Oil in California (had) a cracking plant and my name was there for a job when I finished school. But you see, this was in December of '41.
TS: And I had, my graduation date was June of '42. Because of the evacuation, my law school graduation was extended to 1944, June.
[Interruption]
<End Segment 3> - Copyright © 1998 Densho. All Rights Reserved.