Densho Digital Archive - Alley Watada Interview (denshovh-walley-01-0004)

<Begin Segment 4>

RP: Let's get to your siblings. Since there's quite a few of them, that will take a long time. Can you list them by oldest and give us, if you can recall, the date of their birth?

AW: Wow, that's a good one. Well, the oldest one is Albert. He was born in 1924. And he graduated from the Platteville High School and he stayed on the farm shortly and then he was, went into the army, World War II, and he went out to Europe. The second one is Takeshi, his American name is Alfred. And he was born in 1925, November '25. And he too graduated from Platteville High School and then he went into the military and was then sent to the Pacific, ended up in Japan. And then my third brother, which is, who is above me, Andrew, was born in 1927 in Platteville. And he came to Fort Lupton with me where he graduated in Fort Lupton and he joined the, was in the Korean War. And he was killed in the Korean crisis. Then I'm the fourth one. Then a brother below me, Ben, he was born in 1932 and he, he was in the Korean War with me, with... Andrew, Ben, and I were in the Korean, in the military during the Korean War. And he is now, Ben is now retired out in California. And below Ben is my sister Jane, we call her Akemi. Akemi was born in 1935, born in Platteville. Graduated from Fort Lupton and she's married to a farmer here in Brighton, Colorado, Joe Sasaki. So, below Jane is Arthur and he was born in 1937. Arthur... from there the brothers are quite young. I mean several years different so I kind of lose, I don't track 'em as well. And Arthur is in Little Rock, Arkansas. And below Arthur is Bob. And he, Bob graduated from Fort Lupton, joined the Peace Corps, got his college degree, got his, went to Hawaii and got a doctoral in economics back there, married a girl in Hawaii and he's now located in Oregon, retired in Oregon. And below, then comes Everett. Everett, I forgot which university he went to, but now he's, he's in the area. He's a, does income taxes during his winter months and I'm not sure what he does during the summer months. But he's very active in the Buddhist Temple. In fact, he's now the president-elect of the Buddhist Churches of America. So, very active there. And then, then a sister. We have two sisters. Tomiko, her name is Hazel Tomiko and she went to school in Fort Collins and is married to a fellow by name of Bob Taketa who has an engineering firm in south Denver. And below that, it would be Eugene and I know, well, right now he's a State Farm agent in Brighton, Colorado. And then the youngest one is Bill and he's, I think he has his degree in accounting or in business, but he's with the federal government on Department of Transportation or Safety. Is that twelve? Did I miss anyone?

RP: That's twelve.

AW: Okay.

RP: By my count.

AW: Okay

RP: You'll have to practice that every morning just to make sure you get everyone. Wow, a lot of divergent paths...

AW: Oh yes, yes, uh-huh. I think we have three sets of family in the family. I mean, in terms of how society and environment has changed. We all have different views.

RP: So your, your parents had their own child labor force.

AW: Oh, that's right. Yes. There being twelve of us on the farm, and mostly boys, I think that we always thought that he had children to make sure they had laborers on the farm. But it was weeding or, or stacking hay, hauling manure... we were there.