Densho Digital Archive - Chiyoko Yano Interview (denshovh-ychiyoko

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MA: And when did your husband come to Topaz? Do you know what, around what year that was?

CY: It was 1944, I think, 1944, someplace in March.

MA: And so you were saying that you had already...

CY: I knew he was coming.

MA: ...you had seen his file. So you knew his name and kind of, a little bit about him.

CY: And then when he came, he, they asked him to write the Topaz Times, the Japanese, the Japanese section of the Topaz Times, so he worked right on the next, next building, next room from me. But we had a cubbyhole, like, and the walls weren't all the way to the ceiling, it was, you know, just so that you couldn't see across. And so Mr. Ernst would call me by my name, Miss Yoshii, Miss Yoshii, and oh, he called me several times a day. And then he wondered who this "Miss Yoshii" was, and every time I got called, name was called, I would come out of my office and go to Mr. Ernst's office. And then the supervisors all had a meeting one time, and next to me sat Mr. Sugiyama, he's the Reverend Sugiyama from the (Nichiren) church in Sacramento. Do you -- well, he passed away already. His son was one of the doctors at Topaz, Dr. Sugiyama, Henry Sugiyama, he lives in Sacramento now. And such a small world, his niece lives right across the street from my daughter in Sacramento, no, in Davis. And they asked me if I knew somebody who, so and so from Berkeley, because her mother went to school at Armstrong before the war, so she knew some Japanese families here, so she would ask me if I knew (...)... well, he's a dentist. So I said, "Yes, I knew she lives right next door to my tea teacher, Mrs. Morishige," etcetera, etcetera. And so I said, "Well, you know, I don't know anybody in Sacramento or Davis except my own daughter," and they said, "Oh, I'll bring, when my mother comes to visit me, I'll bring her over." So we had her over for lunch, and I met her mother and I told her, "Well, I don't know anybody." She was asking me if I know this person and that person, and because she knows several families in Berkeley because she went to Armstrong Business College here. And so, so I said, "I just don't know anybody in Sacramento except for the doctor that delivered my first child Joyce. His name was Dr. Sugiyama." And she says, "Oh, that's my brother-in-law." [Laughs] So such a small world.

MA: Small world, yeah.

CY: And it's her daughter that lives across the daughter from my daughter, Doris.

MA: So then the Reverend Sugiyama, did he have a hand in introducing you and your husband then?

CY: Yes, well, he, I was sitting next to him in this meeting, and he tells me, "You know, when you go home today, could you tell your father I'd like to come see him?" And so I said, "Yes, I could tell him that." And then he said, "I'll come see him after dinner." And so I came home and I told my father that a person named Mr., the Reverend Sugiyama is coming to see you. He's from Sacramento, and he wants to see you." And so my father said, "Okay." And so we were expecting him, and along with him he brings this man that was working in the next (room). And, well, you knew right away what the object of that was. [Laughs] And he, and then so the next time, he said, "Oh, I'll introduce you to his brother," who lived in Topaz, and his brother and his wife came with a family album. And that's where he saw Mr., another friend of his in the picture and he says, "Well, how come this family is in your family album?' He says, "Oh, that's my sister-in-law." [Laughs] And so, and then they were all from Kochi.

MA: So your father recognized someone in, in this album of your husband's family.

CY: Yes, uh-huh. And so he says, "Well, how come he's in your family album?" So he says, "Well, that's my sister-in-law." That's why the family was in that family album.

MA: And from the same ken, from Kochi-ken.

CY: Yeah, same, Kochi.

MA: And what is your husband's name?

CY: Isao. His name at that time was Isao Yano. I-S-A-O Yano.