<Begin Segment 18>
TI: What else? What other expectations did you have when you were traveling to Japan?
TO: Wasn't very much. I was engaged at that time.
TI: And who were you engaged to?
TO: Roy Fujita.
TI: So explain that. So when did you get engaged?
TO: Well, in the camp we just exchanged rings and that was it.
TI: And which camp was this, Tule Lake?
TO: Tule Lake, yes.
TI: So you're, you exchange rings, you're engaged. Where, as you went to Japan, where was Roy?
TO: I thought he was there on the same ship, but he was not.
TI: Okay, so his family was also, he was planning to also go back to Japan.
TO: Uh-huh. Oh, he was what they called Kibei Nisei, and he didn't have any family in the United States. His family were all in Japan.
TI: And so what happened to Roy? If he wasn't on the ship, where did he go?
TO: He was in Hiroshima, his folks were, and I think it was about two weeks later, his uncle came over to the country where we were and said that they wanted to cancel the engagement because his mother wanted him to marry, the older son was killed in China, and his wife was left, so they, mother wanted him to marry his brother's wife. So he came to explain what the situation was. And that was it.
TI: Did you ever talk to Roy ever after that?
TO: No.
TI: So you never saw him.
TO: No, I never have seen him. That was the end.
TI: And when the uncle came over, did he talk to your father or to you about this?
TO: He talked to my dad, not me. He didn't say anything to me.
TI: How did your dad tell you? I mean, that must have been a hard thing for him to do.
TO: Uh-huh. He had to look after his mother. And his brother's wife was really a nice person, evidently, and they wanted to keep her there, you know, instead of letting her go. So they asked Roy to marry her. It was just something, they just couldn't get out of it.
TI: And that must have been very difficult for you to hear that news.
TO: Well, it was, but nothing you can do about it.
<End Segment 18> - Copyright © 2008 Densho. All Rights Reserved.