<Begin Segment 11>

TI: And so which church did you go to?

WM: Methodist.

TI: And so tell me about that. Were your mother and father, were they Methodist also?

WM: I don't think so.

TI: So why did you go to the Methodist church?

WM: They're more American-style. Buddhist, it cost money.

TI: Oh, interesting.

WM: Yeah, forty-nine day service. Methodist church, you don't have to pay anything.

TI: So why... so the Buddhist church would have, like, collections, and they would...

WM: Yeah, money.

TI: They would... money. But the Methodist church, they wouldn't do that.

WM: No. We never used to go, only paid penny for offering. If you didn't go, change, my mom don't give us. Then she give us five cents to buy candy. [Laughs]

TI: And so for the Methodist church to have a building and...

WM: Yeah, big one. Did you see it?

TI: Yeah, I saw that.

WM: Big one, but not, all not so good now. Nobody take care.

TI: But it's a big building.

WM: Yeah.

TI: So how did they pay for that? How did, if they don't --

WM: Everybody, member. See, half and half were Japanese, so they got money to pay.

JS: So with the Methodist church, it's partially paid by the provision, and then also by the townspeople. It's an investment, so it's shared cost.

TI: But then you just didn't have to do as much, is what happened.

WM: Right.

TI: In terms of size, for the people in town, did more people go to the Methodist church or to the Buddhist church?

WM: Half-half, I think.

TI: Now, was there ever any arguments between Methodists and --

WM: No.

TI: -- Buddhists? If the Buddhist church had a party or a function, like a festival like Bon Odori or...

WM: Only they had it at that time.

TI: Yeah. So would the Methodists go the Buddhist...

WM: Dance, that's all. And then we used to have a Halloween party, too, our church.

TI: So when the Methodists, when you had a Halloween party, did the Buddhists come to the Halloween party?

WM: Some kids.

TI: Okay, so there was sharing back and forth.

WM: Yeah.

TI: And so people got along and did this. Did the, was it common for people from, say, the Buddhist church, for, sometimes for the family to switch to Methodist church? Did you ever see that?

WM: No, I don't think so.

TI: So once a family decided one church or the other, they stayed in those churches. Good.

<End Segment 11> - Copyright (c) 2009 Densho and Preserving California's Japantowns. All Rights Reserved.