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DA: Yeah, I'll tell you about Tom, about what he told me about when he came here. He worked in Manila and he worked on a streetcar, you know, on the streets. He was one of those that broke up the streets. He worked there for years and all the money that he made he would give to his parents. And so one year he decided he was gonna come to America because he had some uncles here. So he got on board this ship. What little money he made, he paid his fare, and it took them twenty-one days, on that ship, to get to Seattle. And there was other boys that were with him, they were all sick. They were right at the bottom of the ship, right close to the engine and everything, that was the cheap rate. And he said he just wanted to die. He said, "I don't care if I never get there. I want to die." But he hung on 'til he got to Seattle. He didn't know anything about Seattle. So... I think he had his brother, younger brother, was here already, his brother Garcia. And then he came over to Bainbridge where his uncle had a farm, a small berry farm, out by Flodin? Flodin corner. Yeah. Way back in the woods there, yeah. And so he lived there and he helped his uncle. And then he would go out and help the Japanese on their farms. And they, I think they worked for ten cents an hour at that time. But finally, I guess he made enough money that he knew these people, Mr. and Mrs. Clinton Cave. They had a piece of land and an old house that they would lease to him for two hundred dollars a year, and so he moved there. And he had this big house that had a kitchen, empty room, and his own bedroom, and bedrooms upstairs. Excuse me. And every year that he... he was, he came in 1932. And every year the boys that were traveling to Alaska to the canneries would stop there. Sometimes he'd have ten, thirteen boys there. But they would help him in the field, you know, clear the land for strawberries. Then he planted, strawberries, and every year they would come and help him, then they'd go. Sometimes when he and Felix got together, he would go to, Tom would go to Alaska. And like they'd work two days, two nights, in the canneries. And that's what he did, and then he came back. And then he finally made enough money to continue there.

So ten years later is when I came. And he had pickers from Vancouver Island, and I heard one lady talking about him. She says, "If he wasn't married, if I wasn't married, if I didn't have a husband, I'd marry him," she was telling this lady. That put an idea in my head. So in 1942, as I said, we got together. And I don't know, that girl did something, I don't know what she did, but it turned her, him against her, so I stepped in. But he used to have us pick for him. And he would have the boys, the Filipino boys that stayed with him, put up our, make up our lunch. That was the best food I ever tasted. So they would have lunch there and we'd go home. So we, we picked and picked, and I got to enjoy it. So one day, I think it was about two weeks before we were to leave to go back home, he asked me to marry him. So I said, "Well, I don't have anything," you know, clothes or anything, just what I had. He says, "Come on. We'll go to Seattle." So we went to Seattle, went up to Penny's, I believe. And he bought me a veil, a dress, the whole thing. He bought me that and he bought me my ring. And then I thought to myself, "But there's a superstition that a groom doesn't see the bride 'til the morning of the wedding." So anyway, I went to my chicken house and he went home. He had a car that one of the boys had left with him, a nice little car. And the morning of the wedding, we... I dressed up in the chicken house. That was just beautiful, a bride coming out of a chicken house. But I didn't care. We got in the car, went across to Seattle, and he had some relatives in Seattle. We went up there and she had made arrangements with a church. I think it was on James, James Street, a Catholic church. Because I told him, "I won't marry you outside the Catholic Church." So we went across and the boss lady, the one that hired me, came along with us, and just a few. And the priest was a Filipino, so he talked to me and he talked to Tom. So the morning of the wedding we got married and a relative of mine was the bridesmaid, and his uncle was the best man. We did our vows and everything, signed our papers, came back to Bainbridge and went down to his house. In the meantime, all the boys had fixed up a platform for dancing, and they had put fir trees with little decorations. And I felt like Cinderella coming to a kingdom. And the orchestra, it was the Filipinos, 'cause they could really, you know, they were really good. And so we danced the evening away. And Mr. Daniel Bucsit, he had set up everything. For the kitchen they had three cooks, they had killed a cow, chickens, and a pig. And people came from all over, even from Port Orchard, came over. They gave me presents, but I didn't know them. And to this day, I don't know them. But everybody had a good time.

And so... I had to learn how to be a housewife. I didn't know how to cook because my uncle used to do the cooking at home. He was a crippled man and my father had promised his mother when she died that he would take care of two of them, two crippled, and they, they were cooks. So I didn't know how to cook. So I told Tom, "I don't know how to cook." He says, "Okay, come on." So he taught me how to cook. And then the first year is when Tom was born, and people from all over came to see this baby. He was nine and a half pounds. When they brought him in at the, it took me from twelve-thirty at night until, oh, the evening of the next day before he was born. But they had to use the clips to pull him out; I could have lost him. And everybody came, and they put money under his pillow. I guess that's their custom. I didn't know, I still don't know them, but I just learned the ones that lived on the island. And they were Tom's uncles and cousins, they were, they were all related. So I enjoyed that, you know. And so he, he grew up and was about... my mother died in the meantime. She died six months after I left her. And the doctor says, told my father, "Your daughter kept her alive." He said, "She had two lives." So when I left, my sister couldn't do that. And, but I couldn't go to her funeral because I was just as big as a house with the first one. She died in January, and he was born in April. So I brought him home. He was such a crybaby. He, they had given him a little crib, and at night I used to have to rock him. Rock him, rock him. If I didn't rock him he cried. So anyway, but he got over that.

Eleven months later, that one came along. I was expecting her, she was born in March. She was... at that time when Tom got a call to go into the army, he got that call from the President. But he says, "I'm sorry." He says, "I can't go, can I be deferred for a while because my wife is expecting?" So they told him, "Well, we'll give you two weeks." So she was two weeks old when he was, he was away. And then he landed in California. So Mr. Almazon and his wife -- his wife was from my reserve. And they got married a week after we did. -- Mr. Almazon took care of us. If we wanted to go somewhere, he had a little truck and stuff and he'd take me and the kids along. But somehow or other, we managed. We got the allotment from the army. Sometimes my uncle, my uncle stayed with us; he was a bachelor, he stayed with us. He used to walk down to the Bainbridge Gardens for food or sometimes Mr. Almazon would drive me down to the grocery store. In the meantime, Tom would get leave. You know, like a two week leave or a week leave and he'd come up from California. And while he was away, his brother took over the farm, because that was in the spring. And he took care of the farm and one of Tom's uncles, they took care of everything. So, he would come home, then he'd stay home his two weeks, and then he'd go away. And then one time I got a phone call from one of the neighbors that I got acquainted with. She came and she says, "You have a telephone call." She said, "That's your husband." So I went to the phone and he told me they were leaving to go overseas the next day. And I thought to myself, this is the end of it, you know. I couldn't do anything about it. But in the meantime he was going to the Red Cross to ask them if he could get, be... get out of the army, 'cause I had nobody to take care of me. Well, they did their best. So just the day before his troop were to leave, he came home. They let him out of the army with a honorable discharge, and he was a private first class, and he was in there nine months. So I got him back. I was happy. I was happy.

And then the next year I was expecting again, so that's three in a row. Her brother, her, and this one, was fourteen months younger than her. So anyway, I was happy. I had this little boy then. But the nurse at the hospital was the same nurse that had, was there when I had my first one. She says, "Look here now." She says, "Don't you come back next year," she says. I told her, "I don't think so." [Laughs] And I didn't. So they grew up, you know. Nine years later, I had my fourth one, was a little boy. He was nine years from the last one. There's nine years different. Then I had, four years later I had another little girl, so I had five children. The first three were well-known when they started school. Of course, you know, they had their problems, which I'm sure your people had when they went to school.

<End Segment 4> - Copyright © 2007 Densho. All Rights Reserved.