<Begin Segment 2>

AI: Can you describe a little bit what it looked like, from your memories of when you were a very young child, a little bit about what the house looked like, what the farm looked like around the house?

RT: Well, it was... the farmhouse that I remember had a living room, a kitchen, and there was a annex to the living room, which you could close off with curtains, I believe; and that's where we, our family -- my mother, my father, my brother, and myself, and probably the third child, the second brother, also, were sort of the squeezed into this little annex. And the rest of the family, which included my grandma, and my two aunties, and my Uncle Tok, all slept upstairs. Now, Uncle Tok had a room to himself, and the women had to share one room; and the upstairs was really not very tall, the second floor was not that high as far as ceilings go. So we all were in this one house. And then, they built an addition to the house, which became our bedroom. And that means our whole family, I remember, slept in this one room, my two brothers, my folks and myself. And it was close quarters as far as a bedroom is concerned, but you know, you don't spend a lot of time in the bedroom.

The farm was, I'm not sure, but I think it was about five acres. Anyway, was bordered on one side by what is now 116th Street, I think, or Avenue. I don't know which it is. But, on the other side there was a small woods, and that was for us a great place to explore. We just thought it was a huge territory, and it wasn't until I came back after the war just briefly to visit, and I found out what a teeny tiny woods it was; but when we were kids, we really thought we were in a huge area. But it was a very nice woods with a lot of wildflowers, and the farm was adjacent to that woods, so it was very easy for us to go exploring in that wood. We were in, at the bottom of a slope, and the farm sloped up a little ways. And then, the neighbors above us were Sakaguchis, and they lived up on top of the hill, and then across the street was the Yamaguchi farm. Now, I'm not sure, I'm sure it was another farmer that lived there before, but when I was growing up it was the Yamaguchis. And of course, we had a fairly good size yard. My mother always grew flowers and had some nice trees, and there was also an orchard. And the ironic thing is, is that this orchard, which was quite large, had plums, pears, cherries, apples -- and we never ate any of it. We picked a few off the tree and ate it, but never realized how much we would be paying later on in life for these same things that we took for granted. It was just another area to play, for us. We used to build treehouses in the trees. It was another place for us to wander around quite freely.

AI: Well, and can you tell me a little bit about this photo?

RT: Oh, this is me when I was, I would guess that I am about eighteen months. I don't think I'm two. And this is standing in front of the farmhouse on what is now 116th. And in back of us is -- in back of me -- is the Yamaguchi house. And in back of that, is the railroad track. So this is taken, I would guess, in 1928 or '29, something like that.

AI: Thanks. And then you mentioned that you had two younger brothers. What years were they born, and what were their names?

RT: Oh, all right. The brother next to me, Tats, was born in 1928. The third child was Ty and he was born in July of 1930. The other two children came later. Now, my sister was born in Kirkland, at the hospital. She was the first one that was born in a hospital. The rest of us were born through the services of a midwife. And she was born in 1938. And then I have a brother who was born in Montana, the Montana boy, and he was born in 1943.

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