Densho Digital Archive - Kay Ikeda Interview (denshovh-ikay-01-0003)

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JS: So what happened when the twins were born? So you have two younger sisters.

KI: The twins went to live in San Francisco's Salvation Army, I told you.

JS: But you didn't tell us for the interview. So can you tell that story again? What happened? Your mother was pregnant.

KI: My mom gave birth to the twins, and she passed away, losing a lot of blood, and it was one of those midwives that, you know, performed the birth. And so I heard that after this happened, this midwife went back to Japan, 'cause she was kind of afraid when people passed away giving birth, that she's responsible. So that was the story I heard. And so I don't know what a mother's love is, because I never had a mom.

JS: So were you aware, do you remember your sisters being born at all? Do you remember that time?

KI: No, I don't.

JS: You were quite young.

KI: I know that my mom told me go play at a certain place a block away from where the midwife gave, my mom gave birth. And I went to that place and played. And then I just forgot all about my mom, 'cause I knew she passed away.

JS: So what happened at home then? Who came to help take care of all the children?

KI: No one came. When I was nine years old, I used to have to get up at four o'clock and cook rice, 'cause my dad liked rice and he would eat sardines for lunch because that was more convenient for me not to have to cook or anything. So my poor dad ate rice and sardines, which I couldn't do for a lunch meal. But he went out in the country to be a laborer, and that's how he supported the family, by what he got paid.

JS: So after, when your mom passed away...

KI: When he was peddling, my dad had a trunk, and he had peddled fish out in the country camps, like Sanger, Reedley, and Paller or somewhere, different camps.

JS: So you moved from Del Rey to Fresno, and then he became the fish peddler, and he was doing that.

KI: Fish work, yeah. When he would go peddling fish to the camps.

JS: But then after your mother died, then he went to work out in the fields on the farms? Or he was still peddling fish?

KI: No. When my mother died, Dad moved to Fresno and my mother was gone. And so I was living in 614 F Street, and that's where I've been until I got married. [Laughs]

JS: So what happened to the twins?

KI: Oh, the church people said they're so little, you know, just born, the church people suggested having the twins go to San Francisco's Salvation Army, so they took them. And when I was nine years old, I told my dad, "Why can't the twins come live with us? Because that makes the family whole, and I'm nine years old, and I could take care of 'em." So I became big sister then.

JS: So you always knew that you had --

KI: The twins.

JS: -- the twins.

KI: Yeah, because my dad would go see them once in a while, and a couple of years, he would take off from work and just go and see how the twins are getting along.

JS: Did you ever go with him to San Francisco?

KI: No, he never took me.

JS: Okay. But you knew about...

KI: I knew about the twins being there.