Densho Digital Archive - Sumiko Yamauchi Interview (denshovh-ysumiko

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WP: And can you tell me about each of your siblings in order of when they were born?

SY: My sister, like I said, was two years older than I am. And then I had two brothers, younger, Willie and Jimmy. And they were three or four years, Willie was about three or four years younger than I was. So I think my brother Willie had passed away, he lived in Fresno, and he passed away. I still have Jimmy, and Jimmy lives up in Encinitas, he's retired. My sister lives in Encinitas, she's still working.

WP: Wow. What's your sister's name?

SY: Fumi, F-U-M-I-K-O.

WP: And what's your sister like, or what was she like growing up?

SY: Bossy. [Laughs] She got married very young. She got married right away, I'd say about nineteen, eighteen, nineteen years old.

WP: Uh-huh.

SY: I didn't get married until I was twenty-three, so I was able to go out and work. My sister did work a little bit when she was in Chicago, and then she went to Cleveland. But she got married very young and had children. But then later on, they did do some farming, and they grew carnations and chrysanthemums up in Encinitas, and now she's... then she started working at the school district and she's still there.

WP: Can you tell me about your brother Willie and what he was like growing up?

SY: Willie has passed on. He was... I don't know, that was when the computer was just coming in. He's been dead for quite a while. And he used to travel around for a company pertaining to something in that computer thing. Like I said, it was still new yet. And I don't know just what he did at that time. But Jimmy was a farmer, that's my other youngest brother, and he retired. He worked with my mother and father and took over the land and was doing, growing commercial flowers. There's a picture right over there that shows you. I can't get up.

WP: We can look at it later.

SY: Okay. And he worked there growing carnations, and now he's retired and getting fat and sassy. [Laughs]

WP: And what was your relationship with your siblings like before World War II and growing up?

SY: Well, we... like I said, my sister's bossy. And, but we really weren't... we always were kept busy. There was always something that we had to do, and had to be done. And if we didn't do it, then we can go to the movie on Saturdays, you know, that type of thing. Or we couldn't go here, or we couldn't do this or we couldn't do that, you know. And they'd always find something we didn't do. We were constantly busy. I think that was one of the reasons why, when I went to camp, I enjoyed myself. [Laughs] Because my mother went up, in camp she was working in the mess hall, my father was working as, in the mess hall also. And it was, I had more time to myself, and there wasn't that much to do in the house because it was a just little four, five, four room, and there wasn't that much to do. So yeah, I think that's why I enjoyed myself in camp. So camp isn't bad to me. [Laughs]