<Begin Segment 11>

MM: And it's very strange, one day, a person by the name of -- and I forgot -- Minoru, Minoru something, one of his friends ran into him in front of the, probably the NYK building or someplace like that in Tokyo.

MM: This was during the war?

MM: This was after the war.

MU: Oh, after the war.

MM: After the war. And he said, "I know where your sister is." (Of course) he didn't know where our folks were. He didn't know whether we were even in San Francisco. And he told my brother, "I know where your sister is." Well, what do you know, before Christmas my brother wrote a five-, three-page letter, single-space and it came to Fort Snelling. Fort Snelling. Well, in the meantime, I got married, see, and it was addressed to Mitsue Kono, my maiden name, and it was still there when my, Tak, my husband, picked it up and brought it home. And it said, "M..." I think it said, "Ichiyasu, M." And it was signed "Mas," but this was a lieutenant, "Lt. Minoru Ichiyasu." I couldn't understand why he'd be writing to me. And when I opened it up and it was a big surprise. And that turned to be, out to be the best Christmas present for my folks. I immediately sent it to my folks in camp. It told about what went on, in the meantime he got married, and so forth and so on, he had lost this and that in the bombing, that sort of thing. It was pretty rough for him.

MU: Now, why did he use that name, Ichiyasu?

MM: No, the letter came from Lt. Minoru Ichiyasu, M. See? It wasn't a letter from Japan. It came through APO, I suppose. You see, you follow me? And M. Ichiyasu and the person that signed it was Mas. There was no way of knowing who the M. was, I think there was no Minoru, M. Ichiyasu. And he...

MU: Okay. Apparently he had used a soldier's, U.S. soldier's name to send that letter then, except he signed it.

MM: I don't know whether, at that time, whether he could -- I guess he could've sent it by regular mail, I didn't think about that. But I guess he thought it'd be faster, and probably Ichiyasu-san offered to send his, send the letter to me that way.

MU: Okay, well, the big thing is you got the letter.

MM: The main thing is I got that letter just before Christmas, which was just a wonderful Christmas present for the folks.

MU: You knew he was alive at least.

MM: And at that point, we knew he was alive, yeah. It was really wonderful.

MU: Good. Well, you were away from your father so you wouldn't know the reaction. But that would have been interesting.

MM: That would've been interesting. You know, in camp, I felt somewhat sorry for him; he was no longer what you'd call the bread-earner, you know.

MU: Your father.

MM: My father. And that was true with all the others where the children would maybe have -- may not even have their meals at the mess hall with the family. They take off to this friend's place and have -- which was not very good. But my folks --

MU: But this was in camp and this was mealtime, you're talking about.

MM: Yeah, and we had... well, that's just one incident, but knowing how my (...) how my father felt, we respected him. He needed that respect and we looked up to him, which I think he appreciated. So when, at the time I was leaving camp and I was working with this fiscal officer, I made sure that my father had a respectable job, so to speak. So I asked my boss whether he could man the pay station -- you know, where the checks come in for payment to the -- and so he became sort of a pay master and he really enjoyed that, he really did.

MU: Pay master for whom?

MM: Well, they used to issue checks (for) clothing allowance and such to the residents.

MU: In the internment camp.

MM: In the internment camp.

MU: Oh sure, sure.

MM: So he really enjoyed that, I think he did, so he had a good job there.

<End Segment 11> - Copyright © 1997 Densho. All Rights Reserved.