<Begin Segment 22>

TI: During the war, there was a family tragedy, your sister Grace. Can you tell me what happened there?

JU: Well, she developed spinal meningitis. And, of course, they don't know where spinal meningitis comes from or what causes it. But it's clearly fatigue, and she was doing too much. And she was kind of a slight girl, yeah, and I think Mother and Dad always felt that Grace had worked too hard during those tough days. And she barely, she had skipped registering for college that fall because she thought she should be around the house. And so she just, she had just started back in February and she contracted meningitis. And it goes quick, meningitis hits one day and you're gone in two. And so that's what happened to her. Yeah, that was pretty tragic for the folks. They took it very hard.

TI: And you mentioned how because in some ways, your parents probably signed on to be part of the ministry, knew what that life was. But then to have a child, perhaps, suffer because of that...

JU: Yeah, they thought she assumed too many burdens.

TI: Did you ever talk to either of your parents about that? Did they ever talk to you?

JU: Well, yes. But we talked long hours, but of course, as a philosopher, I've known that you're not supposed to ponder on death too much. Only lesser minds worry about death. [Laughs]

TI: Did her death have kind of an impact on your family in terms of a change? Did you see a change after this?

JU: Not really. If it changed, it didn't, it didn't surface very much in conversation. No, they realized that life was difficult. They've seen a lot of parishioners suffer, that was their job, to make sure that they didn't suffer too much.

<End Segment 22> - Copyright ©2009 Densho and the Twin Cities JACL. All Rights Reserved.