<Begin Segment 3>

TI: So explain the, the living arrangements. You had, so your mother and father, and then you mentioned your grandparents, so the mother and father of your father, and then you had, sounds like two workers. You had an elderly Japanese worker and you said Big Boy.

RT: Big Boy was the Filipino worker. The other Japanese man, I think he just lived with us because he, I think he had tuberculosis or something and he couldn't work. And so he was just living with us. So we had one building that had a little living room like, and then our bed, my parents' bedrooms, and then another building that had the kitchen and big dining table, and, oh, we had my grandfather and my grandmother's room. And then we had another building for the, for Big Boy and the Japanese man that lived with us. And I always slept with my grandmother. Every night after my parents went to bed she would say, "This is secret. Now don't tell them." And she would always give me Hershey Kisses, and so I had bad teeth. [Laughs]

TI: So you had a really close relationship with your grandmother.

RT: Yes. Yes.

TI: And to the point where your mother thought that your grandmother was spoiling you.

RT: Yes. [Laughs]

TI: [Laughs] That's, that's... and what was your grandmother's name?

RT: Chiyo. No, Chiye, C-H-I-Y-E.

TI: Okay, Chiye.

RT: And she passed away when she was fifty-eight in 1939, I believe it was, from pneumonia. In those days there weren't any wonder drugs, so you catch cold, and she was in the hospital and two or three days later she passed away. It was a shock.

TI: 'Cause at that point you were about nine, I guess nine years old?

RT: Yes.

TI: So go ahead and describe what, I mean, what would happen when someone would die in Salinas. I mean, what, can you describe, like, the services and the...

RT: Oh, yes, it was a huge funeral. I mean, the line of cars was just, it was a big line of cars, I remember. And there was a picture of the funeral. It was a long picture with everybody in there.

TI: And where was the service held?

RT: At the San Jose, I mean, the Salinas Buddhist Church.

TI: And when you say large, I mean, like hundreds of people there or, how many people do you think were there?

RT: Just about every farmer, Japanese family in that area, and we had friends in Hollister, and my grandparents and parents were very active in the San Jose, I mean Salinas Buddhist Church and the Japanese community there. Everybody there in those days helped each other. When the lettuce wasn't, crop didn't do well, they were always lending each other money and, in those days, everybody was close, very close.

SF: In Hollister, was there a special Japanese cemetery?

RT: Yes, they did have a Japanese cemetery. I don't, I don't know that it exists now or not.

SF: Was that because there was discrimination or because they, people wanted to have a special section just for Japanese?

RT: I don't know. I think maybe they wanted their own Japanese cemetery.

TI: After your grandmother passed away and before the service, did lots of people come to the house? I'm just trying to get a sense of, of kind of what the protocol...

RT: No, I think in those days they didn't come the house. They used the Japanese, the Buddhist church's auditorium. It wasn't that big, but it still was a big, it was a place where everybody gathered, the Buddhist church auditorium. And the Fujinkai, the ladies, when there's a funeral, would go there early in the morning to make all, cook all the things that -- you see now where people, the funerals now are catered lot of times or the friends and everybody brings something. Well, in those days they didn't bring it. They just, the ladies just gathered at the Buddhist church and they cooked there.

TI: And at the service, did people come with koden?

RT: Oh, yes.

TI: So describe how, whatever you can remember from that. How did that work, the koden? I mean, did they come in envelopes or what, what kind of...

RT: I'm sure it came in envelopes, and I remember my parents -- well, my sister Haruko had passed away in 1937, a couple of years before, or maybe a year and a half before my grandmother passed away, and that was also a big funeral, but my grandmother's funeral was much, much bigger. And my family had a big black tablet where they had written in the koden, who they got the koden and how much it was. I think in those days it was probably two or three dollars.

TI: And what was that money used for, koden? What did, do you recall what your parents said they would the money or what they did with the money?

RT: I think the koden was, in those days it was to take care of the funeral and all the expenses, because the Isseis, the immigrants really didn't have much money and so if there was a death, that's how they took care, everybody chipped in and sent koden, and that's what it was used for, for the funeral.

TI: And you mentioned that your parents had this black book or tablet where everything was recorded. And why would they record that?

RT: Oh, because they, if somebody else had a death in the family they would know how much koden that family gave so they could reciprocate.

TI: Okay, good. Thank you. That was, that was a good explanation. Okay, so we, we jumped around a little bit. Let me go back and now talk about your siblings. So you were the firstborn, born in 1930. Why don't you tell me about your other siblings?

RT: Roy was born two years later, in 1934 -- '32. He was born in 1932, May 21st. And then Haruko followed in May, I mean, she was born in February 1934, and then she passed away in 1937 from meningitis.

TI: Okay. And after Haruko?

RT: And then two years later in 1939, Hisako, Lily, was born, and when we went to Japan she was only a year and a half, or two years. 1941, no, she was two years.

<End Segment 3> - Copyright © 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.