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FK: Well, how are you, Zen?

ZS: Oh, I'm pretty good.

FK: Good, that's good. Can you tell me anything about what you remember about your father?

ZS: [Laughs] Oh, what did you want to know about him?

FK: Well, you know, like what do you know about him coming to the country and getting established on the island and so forth?

ZS: Well, I don't know, he's kind of a strict father when I was young. But then, after later years, well, he was pretty much more docile, you might say.

FK: Do you know how he, how he came to the country, how he came to Bainbridge?

ZS: Well, he was a cook on a steamer, I think. And the ship happened to stop by Port Blakely, and he jumped the ship there. And he, he didn't have much money in his pocket, but he got by somehow. And he walked around the island quite a ways, up and down, I don't know exactly where, but he ended up at the, this little farm that had a shoyutaru, they call it, I guess, it's a bamboo-made keg there. And he said, "Oh, this must be a Japanese place here." So that's where he moved in and that turned out to be Matsushitas' place. And, that's how he got into the country. Later on he had to straighten out his citizenship because he jumped ship. But he got that all straightened out a few years later. That's all I remember about him coming here. He didn't have too much education in Japan, he only went there a few years in grade school, that's about it.

FK: Now, he was an entrepreneur, I mean, he ended up in business. How, how did that happen?

ZS: Yeah, that's a good question. [Laughs] I don't know. He... I guess he just happened to have a business mind, I guess. It was just the way it was. A little bit different from the others, I guess, all the Isseis that came over.

FK: So how did he meet his wife? How did he meet...

ZS: The Seko family -- my mother was formerly a Seko -- I think they, they were over here. He was a lumberjack or worked in a sawmill, I guess, in Port Blakely, and evidently he went back and then somehow kept in touch with him. And my mother, I'm not sure, I think she was born over here. No, maybe not, I really don't know for sure. So then, just happened to be... well, acquainted with the Seko family. Mr. Seko was my grandfather, and he, he had a son that's my mother's brother, Kaichi Seko. I don't know for sure when, when they got married, what year that was, I don't know.

FK: The only house I remember you guys living in was the one across from the Gardens. But did, did, was there another house that you lived in before then?

ZS: Well, up on the hill, we lived there later on. We used to live in that small shack, I always call it, right across from Bainbridge Gardens. And I can remember I was a small kid there and they used to kid me about me falling off the bed all the time. 'Cause I was upstairs, you know, they could hear me falling off the bed. And eventually the fire department used that for a fire drill and burnt it down. That's all I can remember about that.

<End Segment 1> - Copyright © 2006 Densho. All Rights Reserved.