<Begin Segment 2>

MA: And how did he meet your mother?

NI: "Picture bride." That's what it was.

MA: And a little bit about your mother. What was her name?

NI: Her name was Hana, H-A-N-A, Eguchi, E-G-U-C-H-I, and she is also from Okayama. And I think her family had a coal, selling coal in that little town.

MA: So from the same town in Okayama as your father?

NI: No, her place was... what was it? Oi, so it must have been a small, very small village, probably, Oi, I don't how you would write that in English, Oi.

MA: And do you know how old she was when she married your father?

NI: I think she was about twenty-one, I'm estimating on my birth.

MA: And what was your mother like as a person? What kind of personality did she have?

NI: Oh, she was a gentle person, though she was a fun-loving person. She liked to kind of joke around. Work, hard worker, she tried hard because in the old days, some of these Issei men were, they thought they were the boss. So I think she had quite a hard life that way. Other than that, she was really good to us. She always wanted to do the best for us as much as she could.

MA: A good mother, then.

NI: Oh, she was a good mother.

MA: And what about your father? What was he like?

NI: Well, there again, he was a strong person, and whatever he thought was right for us kids, we better believe it and try to obey him. But he was partial in some ways as we grew up. When we were younger, well, he was kind of strict, very strict.

<End Segment 2> - Copyright ©2008 Densho and the Watsonville - Santa Cruz JACL. All Rights Reserved.