<Begin Segment 6>
TI: I want to back up to something you said earlier, that your mother's brother, older brother, served in World War I?
JG: Yes.
TI: So this is your uncle?
JG: Yes, the one that was a doctor.
TI: Yeah, so he... do you know any stories about that, about your uncle serving during World War I?
JG: Well, he actually did not go to Europe, he was a medic and he was stationed in Washington State as far as I know because I see pictures of him in Washington and he was very young because this was between 1917 around that time, huh. So let's see, he was born in '95.
TI: 1895?
JG: 1895.
TI: So would he be twenty-two then, about twenty-one, twenty-two?
JG: Yeah.
TI: So that's interesting. Yeah I'm just curious when... I'm jumping around a little bit but he's a veteran of World War I. During World War II what happened to him?
JG: He was a practicing physician in Cincinnati and out of that zone of Washington, Oregon, California. (Narr. note: Joe actually graduated from the University of Cincinnati Medical School in 1924.)
TI: How did he end up in Cincinnati?
JG: Well, he went to medical school at the University of Cincinnati. He did pre-med at UC Berkeley and so did, everybody in the family went to UC Berkeley one time or another except my mother who made sure we girls had an education.
TI: But were there any thoughts then during the war -- I'm jumping around a little bit -- of the family going to live in Cincinnati with your uncle?
JG: Actually my grandmother and my aunt did, they did. And the reason being is my uncle was a medic, my other uncle was a medic in Europe. He and my dad volunteered. (They went to Cincinnati after we left Topaz.)
TI: But his sister, or your mother, decided to go to camp and not to Cincinnati.
JG: Exactly, and I don't know why that decision. But I also know that they got out of camp early which was --
TI: Right, yeah, we'll get to that. So just in terms of siblings for your mother, so we talked about your uncle who was in World War I. How many other siblings were there?
JG: Well, two, and both of them died. The younger sister died -- that I was named for -- in almost child, as a baby, she was like three days old. And the other one died of the influenza epidemic.
TI: Okay, so it was just your uncle and your mother and there was a quite a bit of age difference between the two also.
JG: Yes, well, actually there's a big age difference between the brothers. 1895 and 1908, Tyler was born in '08 and Mother was born in '11.
TI: So that's sixteen years, that's quite a bit.
JG: Well, that's kind of normal in our family. I have two sons and they're twenty years apart. [Laughs]
TI: Wow, okay. We'll get to that later so... anything more about your grandfather before we move on to your life? We talked a little bit about your grandmother on the Nakayama side. I guess you didn't know as much 'cause he, first he... you talked about the store, anything else though like in terms of personality or anything that you know?
JG: All I know is that he was a very kind, good-hearted person. He also worked with herbal medicines with the Japanese community, I heard that. And a lot of this information comes from the Endos because they were very close family friends and saying how kind he was and how hard working because he was missing from doing these train trips and then doing whatever he had to do to... I have to think he must have had a very, very difficult life. And that's all, and my mother, she was very closed about, you know. But he was such an older father, you've got to realize that he's 1869, so about. (Narr. note: He actually lied about his age so he could continue to work for the railroads. On his gravestone it says1870 but Grandmother Nakayama told Aunt Mitsu that he was actually ten years older which would place his birth around 1860.)
TI: Right, so and your mother was born 1911?
JG: Yeah.
TI: So he was in his forties I guess when... yeah, so when your mother was a teenager he was in his fifties, sixties.
JG: Yeah.
TI: Okay.
<End Segment 6> - Copyright © 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.