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TI: Okay, so today is Thursday, December 10, 2009, we're in the home of Gene and Jane Itogawa. We're doing an audio interview with David Matsuoka. We have Jill Shiraki as primary interviewer, and then Tom Ikeda is helping her. And doing the audio, recording the audio is Dana Hoshide. So go ahead, Jill, why don't you start?

SY: Okay, thank you for coming to visit us and talk with us about your memories of Walnut Grove. So can you tell us when you were born and where? When and where you were born?

DM: I was born December the 21st, 1929, in little town of Walnut Grove.

JS: Okay.

TI: Wow, so that, you're going to turn eighty this month?

DM: That's right, December I'll be eighty.

TI: You'll turn eighty. Well, congratulations, that's a milestone.

DM: I'm still, I'm like a kid. I'm afraid of cameras. [Laughs]

JS: But you've got some great stories to tell, and we'll be able to share this with your family.

DM: Well, really, I don't remember too many things. But I know I can say a few things.

JS: Okay. So you don't have to worry so much about the details. We had Louie's wife translate it, and I have for you just a summary we found in the Kumamoto-ken book, a little bit of history about your father...

TI: Well, Walter's wife, not Louie's wife.

JS: Oh, yeah, Walter's wife. I'm sorry, Walter's wife did a translation, which is nice. So we have some names and dates, little bit about a history. And we found out that your father first started a shoe store in Sacramento before all of you were born. And there was a lot of competition there, so it wasn't going too well, and he decided to then move to Walnut Grove and open a shoe store there. And before that, when he first came, he was in Vacaville, did some farm labor, then he worked at the hospital, I think, which you guys, you and Walter had told me about. But I think what we didn't know is that he had had another shoe store before the one he opened in Walnut Grove.

DM: Are you referring to my dad?

JS: Yes.

DM: See, those things I didn't know, Vacaville and all that, Sacramento.

JS: So where are you in the birth order? You're number... oh, you're, like, number six?

DM: Where was I?

JS: Yeah. 'Cause there was how many siblings in your family? How many children in the family?

DM: Okay, there was seven of us.

JS: Seven of you.

DM: (We) have five boys and (two) girls, so I have four brothers and two sisters.

JS: And you're number... seven?

DM: Number seven, that's right.

JS: Number seven, okay. Great.

<End Segment 1> - Copyright (c) 2009 Densho and Preserving California's Japantowns. All Rights Reserved.