<Begin Segment 9>

SO: Did you want to talk about how you wanted to get married between age twenty-three...

EY: All right. When I was about sixteen years old, my prayer was, "Lord, I'm afraid of girls, but I would like to start dating when I'm a senior in high school and I want to get married between the age of twenty-three and twenty-five." So in camp, I saw this girl, her name was Terry, from a distance. And I said oh, it must be infatuation but I got interested in her and she was my first date. As a matter of fact, we dated on several occasions, on camp dances that used to take place over the weekend, and I even took her to our senior prom and eventually she ended up in Denver, Colorado, with her parents. And on my two weeks' leave before going to the port of embarkation I went to visit with my parents in Camp Topaz and on the way to Camp Meade, Florida -- excuse me, Maryland, Camp Meade, Maryland, I stopped in Denver and spent one day with her. And then when I got to Camp Meade, Fort Meade, Maryland, I said, "Hey, this isn't going to amount to anything," so I decided we'll call it quits. So I stop all communications with her and then that's when I met Pearl. And then having just met Pearl for one night, I needed some kind of an excuse to write to her. So after a month or two in Europe, an incident took place in New York City. I don't know how many of you might remember, but back in 1944 I believe or '45, the Empire State Building was hit by a small private plane. And I took that occasion to write to Pearl, I said, "Say, I read about the plane that hit the Empire State Building. Were you anywhere nearby?" And that's when we started corresponding. And lo and behold, this girl in Denver that I used to date, decided she was going to go to school, and of all places to go to she decided she would go to New York City, and of all the thousands of schools in New York City she ended up in the same school that Pearl was going to. It's called Traphagen Fashion School. Then one day she spotted, Pearl spotted Terry having lunch all by herself so she joined her and was having lunch. And then Pearl opened her purse and there was my letter saying "Ed Yoshikawa" right on the corner. And she spotted that and said, "Oh, do you know Ed?" She said, "Oh yeah, we write to each other." Immediately she closed it. [Laughs] So it's amazing how things have happened and out of the clear blue sky they meet, boom.

<End Segment 9> - Copyright ©2009 Densho and the Twin Cities JACL. All Rights Reserved.