Densho Digital Archive - Kan Yagi Interview (denshovh-ykan-01-0010)

<Begin Segment 10>

RP: What did you take in college?

KY: What did I major in? I majored in psychology. Yeah, I got a bachelor's in '57, a master's in '58 and then I went to work in Monterey for five years. Well, actually she put me through. She was working at Hill Field at the time, she worked there and put me through. We went to Monterey and worked for five years and then one day I said I'm going to go back for the doctorate.

RP: To the University of Utah?

KY: So we went back and I got my doctorate in 1960.

RP: So how did you two meet?

KY: Well, actually I'd known her through when we used to play basketball when I was on the farm. Basketball and so forth and in fact in her sister was my classmate, older sister. Anyway I knew who she was and then when we went to Salt Lake to go to school, called her up one day asked for a date and that was it.

RP: You also lived in Corinne?

Off camera: No, I lived in a town called Honeyville, just a few miles from Corinne.

KY: Farm community.

RP: Oh, okay.

Off camera: It's still there.

RP: Is it? So your father was a farmer?

Off camera: He had land there and he was farming there.

RP: So how was your family treated during the war?

Off camera: I think as I remember my father said that they never, people didn't look down on him or nothing. They were just always friendly, you know, the Mormons are if you get to know them, they were all Mormons around where we lived so we had no problems.

KY: In small towns... well, like Brigham City, is ninety-nine percent Mormon. Brigham City has population... had at our time was about 3,000 people, 4,000 and when your Mormon they had six wards in Brigham to serve all the Mormon people. So church is a big thing.

RP: Were you frequently visited by church missionaries?

Off camera: I think they knew that we wouldn't be interested in their religion.

KY: Yeah, when we first moved to Corinne, we got visited fairly often by missionaries and Dad told them that when you come to our house, you can visit any time but we don't talk church in our house. That's essentially what he said. And actually it's strange but several of these Mormon missionaries became friends and they'd come visit. Mother would even... at a few of them she served them tea and at that time, the Mormons wouldn't drink tea. And we would jokingly say well, we eat rice and pour tea in it 'cause that's what we like, it's an old fashioned thing. And if we can't drink tea, we can't join the church. [Laughs] Kind of jokingly do that but we became good friends. All the people in Brigham City as I think I wrote in there, Mother became... was invited to join the business and professional women's organization because she was actually a good cook and she also did needlework, all that kind of stuff. And the ladies wanted to see some of her work she did, crocheting, tatting, which is unusual. And even my dad made nets, netting doilies and entered them in the state fair, county and state fairs. Anyway, they wanted to see that kind of stuff and Mother and my sister, they did a lot of that.