Densho Digital Archive - Gladys Koshio Konishi Interview (denshovh-kgladys-01-0003)

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RP: And your mother, what was her name?

GK: My mother's name is Shime, and her name was Shime Morimitsu, and when my dad was ready to, felt like he could take a wife and support a family, he wrote back to Japan, and my mother was five at the time my dad came over, so they didn't know each other. But Mother said that when he wrote back and asked for a wife, she said that the only thing she was concerned about was that he was not a drinker, he did not drink. And they said, "No, he does not drink." And so she said, "Okay, then, I will come over." So she was nineteen at the time in 1913, she came over on the ship, that took a couple weeks. And my dad met her there, and she said they were married immediately after she got off the, off the boat.

RP: And that was in Seattle?

GK: Yes, this was in Seattle. So, but in the meantime, my dad had been sharing a farm with another fellow, another Japanese fellow, so I guess he lived with them for the first year of their marriage, and then eventually he found a place. And I think at that time, he probably got a wife, also. So then the community started growing. Because I think there were bachelors that came over first, and then got things going.

RP: Decided things looked well enough to establish themselves and have, begin a family.

GK: Right, uh-huh.

RP: You were mentioning a little earlier about the reason that your dad married your mother right off the boat.

GK: Yeah. [Laughs] My, well, you know, yes, I guess he wasn't gonna take any chances of her marrying anybody else. And that was prearranged, and so that was where she was going. But yeah, I mean, they talked about this other fellow that, as "picture brides," she did not send her picture, and so she had sent someone else's picture and didn't match. And I guess he said that he wasn't gonna marry her, and Dad took him aside and said, "You can't send her back to Japan, that would be a disgrace," so he did marry her. It worked out, it worked out.

RP: And what can you share with us about, you mentioned about your mother a little bit helping your dad, taking some of the responsibilities of personal affairs and that type of thing. But give us an idea of what she was like as a person in your eyes.

GK: Oh, my mother was, I think in order for her to come over from Japan, she had to be a strong person, and she was a strong person. But I think she had a lot of spirit and just a determination. I know she said that when she decided to come over to America, her mother cried and said, "I'll never see you again," and she sad, "Mother, I'll be back in five years." And of course, then when she came over and got married, then she had two little boys, and she said it was, she never made it back. And it wasn't until -- she came in 1913 -- and my dad and my mother went back to Japan in 1957 for the first time. So by then she had lost all of her family and everything, and so had my dad, pretty much, I think, had lost a lot of his family, and things were not the same. And I remember like Dad said that here he had his half a grapefruit, his coffee and his toast, and when he went to Japan it was the rice and the miso soup and he said he just couldn't do that anymore. He like his coffee and his half a grapefruit and toast. [Laughs] And he said that the farms out there, I think at the time, were using human waste for the fertilizer, and he said that it was just so smelly. He said that he had to cover his face with his, with the blanket. Said they'd sleep with their windows open, and he said it was very smelly. And he said, I think they were there, like, three weeks, and he was ready to come home. Home was Fort Lupton, yeah, Fort Lupton. But Mother was very strong, and I think when you're growing up, you, a lot of things you watch your mother do and you think, "I'm not gonna be like my mother," but you find yourself just becoming more and more just like your mother and just really proud of it, actually. So you realize that she's been your role model all those years. But at the time, when you're growing up, you think... because we were so American, and they were still the Japanese custom. And being, trying to keep that tradition, they didn't want us to be, I don't know how to say it, but more, you know, more American, I think. And so she was a buffer. She was a buffer for us because Dad would say something and he'd be real strict, and Mother would be kind of... and so she was our buffer. I'm not sure, I think a lot of times we never heard what he might have said to her, but for us it was always a positive.