<Begin Segment 30>

KL: Well, that was one of my other few questions, was we talked about your parents, your aunt and your two brothers. I know you may not know about all of them, but would you just fill us in on what the rest of, what you know of the rest of their lives?

EY: Let's see. Uncle George and Auntie Mary passed on, and then the daughter passed on. Kenny's and optometrist, and Ray, he repairs... what do you call those? Machines for a Japanese firm down in Los Angeles. Then the other one, I think he's retired, too. Then my brother Sam, he was retired, but he used to take groups of people traveling, and he used to be what you call travel agent for groups and took care of their needs when they were traveling. And my younger brother, like I say, he passed on, but he was an optometrist. And the family was planning for his sixtieth birthday and he had an aneurysm the day before he was to have the birthday party, so he never made it. So he was alive in the morning and that night he was gone. The surgery supposedly was successful, but something happened and he died. So my sister-in-law became a widow at a young age, but now she's in one of those senior homes. So she's very active, she was a teacher, so she still even went to Japan to teach the (expats), what do they call them? The American family that go over there and then bring the family, he teaches...

KL: International school?

EY: Something like that, yeah. So she did that for five years over there, now she's back and she's in this home. But it's one of those where in case you have health problems, you could go from one stage to another, but she's in a good place right now, so she's active there. And, let's see, our own kids, our oldest one is Janice and she lives in Vallejo with her husband Ron. And the second one is Denise, she lives with her husband in Los Angeles, and our son George over here, he has a set of twins and a daughter, and he's the one that really looks after us when we have a problem. And then my youngest son Steve, he's down in Nipomo and has one daughter, so we have four granddaughters, that's it.

KL: Did your dad continue to have jobs working for families in their homes?

EY: No, he ended up working for a big supermarket and I think he worked in produce over there, too. And he became acquainted with all the guys that worked there at the supermarket, and he's quite happy. But he was into racing, which my mother didn't quite like, ponies, horses, yeah, horses. So when he went, he would bring the winnings home to my mom and she'd be so happy. [Laughs] But other than that...

KL: Did they stay in Southern California?

EY: Yeah, in Los Angeles. And my father went with us to Japan because we were delegates for our church to the mother church in Kyoto, Japan, and I lost my father there. So we went through the whole process of taking care of one who was deceased, that was quite an experience. And Jimi was always the fourth person, he had to carry the coffin. I washed my father down. When he died, then the hospital told me, "Your father's dead, he's gone." So then my auntie, who was my father's youngest sister, was with us, and she was the one who said, well, she'll take care of us, so she calls her friend the mortician, and he says, "Well, what size is your brother." So my auntie's trying to describe him, and I'm listening to her and I'm just chuckling how she described my father. So the mortician brings the box that fits him. In the meantime, anytime when a person dies, then you bring them back to the home where he was supposed to be, so in this case, it would be my auntie's house. And I had to take care of him, so I got a wad of cotton, I poured alcohol on them, I talked to my father as I was cleaning him. And I used to tell him while he was alive that you always have to take a bath or shower every day now so you won't offend anyone, make sure you do that every day. He says, "Every day?" I said, "Every day, wash your hair, too, keep clean." So in the meantime he was taking quite a few ladies who were single already, widows, here and there on his car, and he was so happy, and they would take care of his meals. But anyway, when he died, then I talked to him and I said, "Papa, I'm going to clean you for the last time, you're going to be clean now." So I took care of his face, wiped him down and his arms, and I got up to his waist, and then I just couldn't take it anymore, so I had (my auntie) take over and she took care of his legs. Then we put him in this wooden coffin, just like a mummy thing. And we had three cousins, and Jimi was the fourth one every time. So we put him in there, and to hold the body, because they didn't have any formaldehyde, dry ice under his armpits. After he got in there, we shifted him and fit him in the coffin. And then we drape him with a, where the face is, there's a glass there, and so you could see who the person was. So anyway, we put this satin covering on there, and that part there is open, so you could see who the person... then we put him on the Japanese, like a carpet, what do they call it? Anyway, it's made out of straw. And then the neighbors come, they pay their respects, they throw money to the deceased, and we were up there, staying up all night. But because we had just come in, my auntie said, "Eiko, you just go there and sleep on my bed." And it turns out to be like a storage counter, and so her daughter-in-law really mistreated my auntie. But anyway, she said, "This is my bed, so you sleep on it," and it was just the top of a storage thing. So anyway, Jim and I got up there and slept. Well, she stayed up, all the neighbors came.

And the following morning, we had to take it to the church. So Jimi was the fourth person again, so we took it to church. And uncannily, it was the same sect as ours here in San Jose. So they had the hymn on tape, so they played it, and because they were way out in the country, boonies, they only could afford paper flowers, so we had paper flowers on the main altar. And so they played the hymn, and we went through the ritual that we usually do in the temple. Then we had to cremate him because I couldn't take him back to the U.S. that way. So the mortician said, okay, we're going to take him to this place, so fine. So they take body out of the... let's see, what happened? Oh yeah, they put the whole body on the gas stove, I guess it was. Anyway, they didn't take him out of the... anyway, the crematorium, he said someone, the relative has to light the fire, I'm supposed to light the fire, I couldn't do it. So I don't know whether it was Jimi or if it was my auntie, but she lit the fire to have his body cremated.

In the meantime, I fell in the running water of the community bath, in kind of a ditch, and I hurt my ribs. So my auntie says, "You better go see a doctor." So while he's being taken care of, then my uncle or my cousin takes me to the doctor. And over there, as far as I'm concerned, it's still primitive. I'm undressed because they're trying to take an x-ray, right there in the open, for everyone to see, the x-ray machine is right by the... say this is the door here, the x-ray machine is there, I'm standing there half naked, and patients are coming in the doctor's office. So Jimi just stood there kind of like this so that I would be hidden. And then when we get up on the table, they don't put any paper sheet or nothing, it's just there. So you lay on there, and he's probing me around. He said, "I think you'll be okay with just a net." So he goes to this machine and he unrolls this netting and he first figures me out, and he says, "Here, put this on," and you could go the rest of the trip. So I went to the side and I put this on and it did feel good. So then we go back to the place where he's being cremated, and they have a little house that has a television in it and a bath facility and you're waiting there. And when it was done, the man calls in Japanese, "He's done." So then before you put the ashes into the container, you use a mismatched chopstick. Not a pair, but a mismatch, that's the one and only time you use a mismatch. Up until then, all those years, I never knew why my mother would yell at me when I picked up a mismatched chopstick and then she said, "No, you got to have a pair." I didn't know why, she never explained. So that was the first time I found out. So then my auntie says, "Okay, certain certain part goes in first," and I'm asking why, she said, "Don't ask me why, but that's the way it's done." So the last part that goes in is your adam's apple. And before they did that, the man who took care of it said, "This man was quite ill." "How can you tell?" Because my father had a rupture and he always wore this belt, and it held this thing in. So that part was, remained red. And he had a heart problem so he was taking medication for it, that part was red. And so then he had a bad leg, so he was taking medication for that, so then that part there was red. The rest of the body was all white, skeletal. And so when he said that this man had a lot of problems, I could see it. I'm watching this from a distance, I just didn't want to go close to him. I didn't want to remember him that way. So anyway, that happened. And so she put the... since I was supposed to be doing it, I couldn't do it. So my auntie did it for me, and she put the adam's apple in. And then put the container in there, I don't know who picked out the container or anything, because over here, they tell you, "Well, you have this choice, that choice of containers." Over there, I didn't know, so my auntie took it upon herself to take care of it. And then you put the container into this brocade container so you could carry.

So when we went to Tokyo, our final destination, I was told that I had to go the embassy, U.S. embassy, to get that cleared. So both Jimi and I get on the train and get to the embassy just about closing time. Okay, where's the ashes? Oh, we left it in the hotel. So we looked at the clock, said, "We're going to close in half an hour, so if you could take the train back and come back again, we'll stay open for you," since we were going to depart the following day. So we thanked them, "Okay, please do stay open." So both of us get on, and then we go to the hotel, pick up my father, and then they put a wax seal on it to say that it was cleared by the U.S embassy, that now I could take my father back home. So I did that, so we go to the airport, said, "Hey, where's your dad, where's your dad?" "Right there." "What?" So I had to tell him he died. [Laughs] No one asked me what I went through, I said I didn't want to talk about it then. But after that, when I came home, we had another service for him here in the U.S. But anyway, those who want to know about it, I'll tell them what I went through, and you know what they told me? How beautiful that I was able to take care of my own father. Because over here and even in Holland, they stack up the deceased and then turn the thing. So when you get your ashes, you don't know if it's your father or not. You might have somebody else's ashes. But I was able to know that that's my father. So they tell me, "Eiko, you're so lucky that you took care of your own dad that way." And it never occurred to me until it was pointed out to me over here, that gee, I guess I was. Because I knew it was my dad's ashes.

KL: To have your aunt be part of it, too, so special to you both.

EY: Right. So when I tell the whole story, like sometimes I skip it. But when I tell the whole story like that, it gives the person who's asking me something to really think about. So I said, "If you really want to know that it's your own personal, like in my case it was my father, you need to ask the mortician if it's going to be that way or not." And if you don't like it, then you may have to pay extra to know that that's your father or mother. Because from what I understand -- and I don't know how true it is -- but I understand they stack at least four deceased before they'll turn the oven on. Because I think it's expensive over here. But that's what happened to me, so Jimi and I, we've experienced it. And when I think about my dad, I think that I was lucky that I was able to take care of him that way.

KL: You guys had to have had a pretty close partnership with those circumstances in your family.

EY: Yeah, tried to.

<End Segment 30> - Copyright © 2015 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.