Densho Digital Archive - George Hiromoto Interview (denshovh-hgeorge

<Begin Segment 3>

JS: Were there a lot of Japanese farmers farming in this area?

GH: Here in Clarksburg? Yeah, there were about forty, fifty families. That's why at Japanese school, at first, we had about 120 students.

DG: So when did you start going to the Japanese school?

GH: Oh, what year?

DG: How old were you?

GH: Oh, I was about ten. Ten years old, and I started... see, we used to live down here in this area, the farm, so we used to drive to school. Were you there, too, Japanese school? Yeah.

DG: Someone would drive the kids to the school?

GH: Well, at first my uncle or somebody used to drive. Then later on I used to drive. Now, I don't drive at all.

DG: And that was on Saturdays during the school year?

GH: Yeah, school year we were Saturday, and then summertime we used to attend during the weekday, and then Saturday and Sunday we have to take off, and Japanese school. We could go during the weekday because we were vacationing from grammar school, high school.

DG: And someone would drive you then, too?

GH: Yeah.

DG: Did other kids walk or ride their bikes?

GH: Some of them walked.

DG: It was pretty far out there.

GH: Oh, yeah, it's about, farthest was about, what, ten miles maybe? Well, most of them were close by, five, six, seven miles.

DG: And what do you remember about the classes? Did you have Mr. and Mrs. Osaki as teachers?

GH: Yeah. And we had another teacher, her name was... let's see. The lady teacher.

Off camera: Katsuyama-sensei?

GH: Yeah, Katsuyama-sensei. Oh, you got some of this information already, it looks like.

DG: Just, well, I remember hearing there was a third teacher and the name started with a K, so I was just going to look it up. But can you describe what class was like?

GH: What class was like?

DG: Yeah, were you sitting at desks?

GH: Yeah, we sat at the desk. We had the first grade, second grade, third grade, fourth grade, fifth grade, sixth, seventh. Well, sixth and seventh, they were older people than I am. And this Mr. and Mrs. Osaki, they were teacher before. Mrs. Osaki was a real sharp teacher, she was real nice. She used to teach at San Francisco Kinmon Gakuen, you ever hear of that? And you know the grandson's over there. He's active in, you probably know him. Oh, you know him well? Well, he's the one to ask about the teacher.

DG: But he didn't take classes out here, though.

GH: No, he didn't take a class, but the mother was a teacher. Of course, in there, they were born in, after the war.

DG: So all these kids of different ages would be in that one room?

GH: We had three rooms. At the school, the biggest one was where Mrs. Osaki used to take care of first grade through fourth or fifth grade, and then Mr. was taking care of the older group. And then I had this other lady, Mrs. Katsuyama, she used to teach a younger grade. So she used to help Mrs. Osaki.

DG: That's interesting, 'cause we've seen the school and how there's the big room, and then the smaller room behind the stage.

GH: Yeah, main, and then we had a door.

DG: There used to be a folding door.

GH: Have you been in that school there? Yeah.

DG: So you'd be learning how to read and write in Japanese?

GH: Right. That's where I learned. [Laughs]

DG: Did you hate it?

GH: Pardon me?

DG: I hear some people, some people have bad memories of language school.

GH: Well, I went to Japanese school twelve years. And so I knew quite a bit, because we don't use Japanese anymore. But when I got in the service, they took me into Military Intelligence, I went to school in Tokyo, interrogation in Japanese and English. And after I graduated in Tokyo, then they sent me to Nagasaki, a place called... you ever hear of a place called Sasebo? Oh, you don't know Japan.

DG: A little bit, but not...

GH: Well, that's Nagasaki, anyway, in Kyushu.