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DG: Let's talk about your background in terms of your parents and grandparents a little bit. What part of Japan were they from?

SS: Hiroshima, city.

DG: Tell me a little bit about... what were they doing?

SS: The families, both my mom and my dad's families had farms, had a little farm and they had their own homes. But my dad's father and mom's evidently went to Hawaii, must have been in the what? Late 1800s?

DG: 1890s?

SS: 1890s, yeah, 'cause my dad was born in Hawaii in 1899, and my mom's family must have gone there around 1890-something 'cause my mom was born in Hawaii in 1901.

DG: They were both the oldest children, you said.

SS: No, my dad was the second son. His name -- I forgot what his first name was, but when his older brother died the family named him Moritake, to take the oldest son's name.

DG: And then your dad's family...

SS: Moved back to Japan when he was five, I think. I'm not too sure.

DG: And then they got married in Japan?

SS: And then my mom went to school in Hawaii. I think she went through the 5th or 6th grade, I'm not sure. But when she was eighteen, the whole family went to Japan, for a visit I guess. And that's when the two families, my dad's family and my mom's family, because they were related, arranged for Dad and Mom to get married. And then after Mom and Dad got married...

DG: And this was in, approximately what year was that?

SS: Well, must be 1921.

DG: Before that...

SS: Or '22, because...

DG: Your father was in the army.

SS: No, he got inducted into the army after they got married I think.

DG: Oh, is that right?

SS: Because Mom was eighteen and Dad was twenty. And, uh-huh, he got inducted, I think, after he got married.

<End Segment 2> - Copyright © 1998 Densho. All Rights Reserved.