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TI: Okay, yeah, so before we go there let's finish up. So your grandfather, grandmother, how many children did they have? You mentioned your father in 1911, how many other kids did they have?

JG: They had another boy, Harry and they had two girls, Mary, she was born in 1915 and my aunt who came much later in 1929. So there was a big spread, 1911, 1913, 1915 and then 1929. But I guess what I wanted to tell you a little bit about my grandfather starting a cut flower nursery and my aunt -- oh, there's another oral history. I asked, I wanted to know where more about her father and I said, "What can you tell about Grandpa, your father?" And she said, "Oh, he started this cut flower nursery and he would take a bicycle and have flowers in a basket and take it around to nurseries, I mean, not nurseries but florists in the area. And I know that my father was very friendly with this Tony Rossi because he has a..." there's this cooking thing in our family and there's a lot of Italian cooking because Dad was a good friend of Tony Rossi's son and so they had... he had many meals I guess at the Rossi house.

TI: So do you know what kind of personality your grandfather? It sounds like he was pretty gregarious then?

JG: I think he was and he was also a very handsome man and must have been very athletic because my father was athletic. But he also had a very fiery temper. That I know.

TI: And tell me how you knew that. What story or what did you experience?

JG: My father told me at one time that my grandfather was verbally and physically abusive of Grandmother and maybe I was told this story by my aunt. And he actually stepped in when he was a teenager and said, uh-uh, and he physically thrashed my grandfather which is a very sad story to tell but I think Japanese male... I think it was the period because I hear from my husband's side of the family that men were very, it was very patriarchal and women were very submissive.

TI: But it's... what's the right word? Surprising or... I mean, it wouldn't be normal for a son to stand up to his father like that.

JG: Well, my father had a very good, very good sense of what was... he had his own sense of what was right.

TI: And what was your father's name?

JG: George Kiyonobo Shiraki.

TI: Okay, good. Anything else about either your grandfather or grandmother on that side before we move to the other side?

JG: Oh, yeah, my grandmother was this... she was a very kind woman and such a good cook, you know. I fondly remember, when I was growing up I can remember my grandmother we would go to Monterey in the car, my dad's car, and my grandmother would fix this picnic lunch with the rice balls and the chicken, all that good stuff. And I must have been around seven or eight, this was before my sister was born so I must have been six, just after the war. And I could remember falling asleep on this big woman because she weighed about 150 pounds and she had to be about five three so she was a little round. She was so kind, just so kind, and the house always looked very nice and she would fix these wonderful New Year's meals. I mean, I still can remember those beautiful dishes and they made mochi the whole family made mochi. Can you imagine that?

TI: When you say make mochi, with the pounding?

JG: Yes, they did, that was, I remember that growing up I was under ten and they were doing this. My grandfather really worked hard, he... maybe that's some of the reason for his temperament because he had to start that... he had two nurseries one in Alameda and then in Oakland and then he had to be quite old, huh, in the sixties to forty that's a long time. Oh, my goodness he was very old, huh? Then after that he worked at Mills College as a cook.

TI: And this is after the war?

JG: After the war.

TI: So yeah, he'd be well in his sixties then, actually seventy.

JG: Seventy, yeah, he worked at Mills College as a cook. He was always working. I mean, he really tried to make a good living. And my grandmother, through this whole, time she would be working and supporting but I think she was really kind of the glue that held the family together because she was such a kind woman. She later died of cancer so I'm sure she had this placid sweet... I never heard a bad word out that woman's mouth. She had this sweet smile, this round woman, just very nice. And what's interesting too is I think about the Shiraki side of the family and honestly my aunt and my dad, they said that you had to do things a certain way, it was done a certain way, you behaved in a certain manner, there's only one way to do it and that was the right way. It was... and then so I think it must have come from my grandfather because my grandmother was so sweet.

SF: You mentioned that your granddad was athletic, did he play organized sports for the Japanese community or something?

JG: He must have because I saw... oh, this is so fascinating, Steve. I have some glass cuts of photographs... glass, have you seen those? It's fascinating. I cannot believe it and this was taken in the late 1880s. I don't know what to do with those things of his friends because here he was twenty years in the United States without a family so he did activities. 'Cause he was very fit. He was slender, and my dad played football, he wrestled, he played baseball so did long jumps, boxer. He was a boxing champion my dad so it must have come from his dad.

SF: Alameda had a big Japanese baseball team didn't they?

JG: I think so.

SF: Did your dad play in the league?

JG: Yes, he did and I talked to Mott Yatabe and he said they were on a (football) team and the All-Stars they called them the... what did they call them? The something All-Stars, maybe it was the football, something All-Stars but it was a Caucasian man who ran this league. But there were Japanese Americans in this league and the took all the football players because dad played football, too. And they played these intramural games and I think this must have been in the '20s.

TI: And did your dad talk much about that period, growing up, just his childhood, his memories?

JG: Well, he really didn't. I got it from other people like his friends, like the Yotabes they told us and then other people who knew Dad. And when dad's funeral this one man came up and told him about my dad and my dad was really a nice man. Even though he had a hot temper. [Laughs]

TI: But it sounds like he didn't share much about his life. It didn't sound like you know as many stories.

JG: Yeah, this is a telling story on me. He used to say, "Don't talk." he told me I was yakamashii, I talked too much. He really did. It really hurt my feelings because I was this... I took after the Nakayama, my mother's side of the family, and I guess the Shirakis were more formal.

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