<Begin Segment 2>

CN: And I have some photos here of your father and...

DM: Myself and my sister Jane.

CN: And here's another photo, it looks like you're a little older there.

DM: Yeah. I must have been about five or six I would think.

CN: And this is you again?

DM: That's me when I was, what, probably year old?

CN: Looks like it.

DM: My sister is five years older than myself.

CN: So, you are, in your family line you are number three?

DM: No, number two.

CN: You and...

DM: My mother and my brother -- I mean, my sister, myself, and then we had, I have a younger brother but he was seventeen years younger than me and so, we have some later pictures but they aren't... that's my...

CN: This is your...

DM: ...old family house my dad bought in 1928.

CN: And where did you live in Seattle?

DM: Well, it was an area called Rainier Valley. It was kind of, in the... it was still within the city limits but was in the southern outskirts of Seattle.

CN: Was it a very big with Japanese community?

DM: Well that was, the Japanese people, most of Japantown was closer to downtown, and my mother developed pleurisy before I was born and the doctor told her that she should move out of the downtown area where there's more fresh air so, rent a house, this is before they bought the house, that they should rent a house that was not a real tight house so they could have a lot of change of air, it would be good for her. So that's why they moved out of the downtown area.

CN: It looks like it was kind of a suburban area?

DM: Yeah, it was still dirt roads out there.

CN: And this is a photo of your...

DM: Backyard. There was a cherry tree in the backyard.

CN: Was your father a gardener at all?

DM: My mother was more than my dad. She loved to garden.

CN: And then this is a photo that looks like you are...

DM: Probably fourteen, fifteen, yeah.

CN: So eventually, so your brother, Jane is five years older.

DM: Yeah, my brother wasn't even here yet.

CN: Right, and he's how many years younger than you?

DM: Seventeen. He was born in 1940. He was a big surprise, I'm sure. [Laughs]

<End Segment 2> - Copyright ©2009 Densho and the Twin Cities JACL. All Rights Reserved.