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BK: And as we get further into your life, let's hear, we'll hear more about the activities and how you participated in the church. So as you continued to grow up, then, you had said in an earlier chat that your mother had returned to Japan for a short while. Could you tell us a little bit more about that?

SU: Oh, yes. Right after the Tokyo earthquake, was a timing. And the reason why I did the way I did was my father and mother always said that the children would be sent to Japan for a real good education. They felt that Japan could offer a good education for the children. So my poor brothers, who were under me and couldn't protest, they went with my mother while I stayed behind, because I refused to go to Japan. And having read about that big earthquake in Tokyo, well, I decided I wasn't gonna go where it was so dangerous. But the thing is, so my father had to take care of me. And he couldn't do it because he was working.

My sister -- oh, I had a sister, I forgot to mention, who came from Japan in -- when the immigration was cut off, for all family members even. So she had to hurry to Seattle in, I think, 1924 when that law became effective. She had already graduated her high school days there, so she came to America to join our family. And I remember so well the day she arrived. She was my half-sister. My, the fathers were the same. Well, when my father had originally wanted to come to America, he asked his wife to come with him, but she refused, to a strange country and all that. So she was sent home. And my sister was taken care of by my grandmother. And then when she came, that day that she was going to arrive, my parents announced to me that my sister was coming. I never knew I had a sister. I was so happy, after having a slew of brothers, to have an older sister. So she, I could hardly go through school, wait for the school to end. I ran home. And there she was. And we've always gotten along so well, my sister and I. So during this time, when she, when my mother took my four brothers to Japan, and I was left alone with my father, my sister, who had been attending Columbia University in New York City, had to leave her school to come and take care of me.

And I tell you something funny. About two years ago she passed away. And I went to see her before she passed away. And she says, one of the things she remembered about having to take care of me was that she had to make lunch for me, sack lunch. And she says, every day she made peanut butter and jelly sandwich. And she said, for two years I had, she had to do that for me. And I never grumbled. I was so grateful to have something to eat. But she remembered that, and we laughed and laughed about things like that. And so my three brothers, one two, yeah, three brothers were left there. And the reason the fourth brother had to come home was my grandmother said he was too mischievous for her to take care of. So my second brother and I were reared together.

BK: Oh, I see.

SU: And the rest stayed in Japan. But the old, the one next to me, as soon as he graduated high school, he came to Seattle to join us. But the other two remained in Japan 'til, oh, all through the rest of their lives.

BK: I see. I see. And when did your mother return to Seattle? 'Cause she had taken the boys over for their education.

SU: She stayed there almost a year and a half, I think, something like that. And she came back. Now the family was divided --

BK: Right.

SU: But...

BK: Right. And when your mother came back, then, did your sister continue to stay on --

SU: Yes.

BK: With you?

SU: Then we found out she had married a student from Japan who had graduated from Columbia University. And so my father says, "Call him. He can help run the dairy." So he came, but he was Japan-born. His only years in America was when he was in school, New York City. So I think he had a hard time adjusting to the small Japanese community that we have here.

BK: In Seattle, right.

SU: But it was okay.

BK: So he helped, eventually, run the dairy?

SU: Oh, yes. He modernized the dairy. Collected all the old debts my, that my father had put behind him. He went after them, things like -- he, but he, too, went to Japan before war 'cause he knew that war was imminent. Which is another thing, I think we were caught, so many of us were caught unaware of, that there would be such a disastrous war. But my brother-in-law knew. He took everything and went to Japan.

BK: Oh.

SU: And so my sister and he were separated for the rest of their lives because my brother-in-law died soon after war ended.

BK: And your sister had remained in the United States?

SU: Uh-huh.

BK: I see.

<End Segment 4> - Copyright © 1998 Densho. All Rights Reserved.