Densho Digital Archive - Shirley Nagatomi Okabe Interview (denshovh-oshirley-01-0015)

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AL: I was gonna ask you also about going back to the funerals. I know in all of the pictures it shows caskets, and yet in the pictures of the church, there's all urns. So would they have the body present for the funeral and then cremate?

SO: Yes, yes. And then a lot of them, they would cremate them thinking somebody they would leave camp, and so they would leave the cremations at the church.

AL: And is it typical for most Buddhist funerals that they are cremated?

SO: Uh-huh. I'd say majority. Not all, because I have friends who buried their parents at a local cemetery.

AL: There are still nine bodies remaining in the cemetery at Manzanar, or excuse me, six. Nine have been removed, six are still there.

SO: Is it because they can't find...

AL: There's three old men and three ladies.

SO: I know the first one who passed away was a bachelor or something.

AL: Mr. Murakami?

SO: Uh-huh.

AL: Do you know if your father did that funeral?

SO: I'm not sure.

KL: You said they would leave the ashes at church thinking they would leave the camp one day?

SO: Uh-huh.

KL: Can you say more about what you mean?

SO: I think there's a picture in the album, but many of the remains were put into little boxes, and they would keep them at the church. And so my father brought back quite a few to Gardena, and the relatives would come and pick them up.

AL: Do you know if those urns were made in camp? Because they all look the same.

SO: I think they're boxes. I think they were boxes, that's what they look like, but I'm not sure.

AL: Do you have any idea how many ashes would be... I guess we could look at the picture and count, but...

SO: Yeah, I'm not sure. But I'd say the majority of the bodies were cremated.

AL: Did you ever have any interaction with children from the Children's Village, or did you know that that orphanage was there?

SO: I know the orphanage was there, but I never had any interaction with the children.

AL: Do you know if your father or your mother...

SO: Yeah, my father did, because he would take groups over there.

AL: Groups of who?

SO: Of the YBA members.

AL: The Young Buddhist Association?

SO: Uh-huh.

AL: And what would they do over there?

SO: I think they would just maybe participate with them in games and things, take treats. And then I know during Obon, they would go over there and... well, no, that was to the hospital that they would go and take some of the girls in their kimonos and have a program for them.

AL: For the patients in the hospital?

SO: Uh-huh, yeah.

AL: You had talked earlier about... or you'd mentioned Ralph Merritt and your father. Ralph Merritt is one of the camp directors, the one who was there the longest, from November 1942 through the closing of the camp. What can you tell me about Ralph Merritt as a person as you remember him? Not what you know now, but as a presence in your life there, did he come to your apartment, did you see or interact with him at all?

SO: No, it's just, I guess, hearsay. It's from my father, what I heard from my father. He would be present every time my father would be questioned about the loyalty. At first my father could not get travel permits because they always stated that he had a son in Japan, and so they didn't feel that he could be trusted to go outside of camp. But after so many months, I think Mr. Merritt thought he was trustworthy enough to go out of camp. So my father left camp about, maybe three or four times. I know he went to a funeral in Topaz, and he went to visit a sick person in Reno, and I think there were a couple of other times.

AL: Do you know whose funeral he went to in Topaz and why?

SO: Oh, it was the Bishop Matsukage, it was his wife. And she had passed away, and my father was very close to the bishop from San Francisco, and so he felt he had go to. And so that's where they, all the ministers had a meeting to... before, they were always under the Japanese Buddhist church from Japan, and at this point I think they made, they were going to cut themselves off from the Japanese Buddhist church and form their own Buddhist Churches of America, so that they were not... they didn't have to get any income or anything from the church in Japan. So it was more or less an independent American Buddhist group.

KL: That was during the war or before?

SO: Uh-huh, no, it was towards the end of the war. Because many of the ministers went to Topaz to attend the funeral, and so then they decided to have a meeting there.

AL: Do you think they had planned in advance to set up the Buddhist Churches of America, or do you think it was just, they were at the funeral and started talking about it?

SO: I'm not sure.

AL: Because I've heard of the meeting...

SO: Oh, have you?

AL: But I didn't know it was associated with a funeral. And what was the person who died, what was her name?

SO: Mrs. Matsukage.

AL: Matsukage?

SO: Uh-huh, the Bishop's... she was the present Bishop of the Buddhist churches in America.

AL: Do you know how she died?

SO: I'm not sure.

AL: Or how old she was?

SO: I think it's somewhere in my writings, but I'm not sure. But I think my mother said she was not a very strong woman, and so they never had children. Oh, I know, she passed away of a stroke, that's what it was, the telegram my father received said she passed away of a stroke.

AL: Do you know how they traveled up there? Did they take, I mean...

SO: I think train.

AL: Train? Did he have to have a chauffeur?

SO: Escort, yes.

AL: Escort?

SO: An English-speaking escort. But it was usually one of the YBA members.

AL: So it was not a WRA or an MP?

SO: No, no.

AL: It was just an escort.

SO: Uh-huh, and they have to have permits.

AL: How long was he gone?

SO: I don't remember. But I think on the permit it says how many days they could be gone and do that by a certain date.

AL: Would you say he was comfortable with the decision to break away from Japan?

SO: I think so.

AL: And so this Buddhist Churches of America, did it, I mean, was there a council or was there a leader who... how did that work organizationally?

SO: Well, because they had a bishop, and prior to the war the bishop was always out of San Francisco. But then Bishop Matsukage had to go to Topaz, and so when all the ministers were there for his wife's funeral, perhaps he decided... I'm not sure exactly how that transpired.

AL: And Buddhist Churches of America, did they only oversee the sect, Jodo Shinshu?

SO: Uh-huh.

AL: So it's not Zen Buddhists...

SO: No, no.