Densho Digital Archive - Kinge Okauchi Interview (denshovh-okinge-01-0003)

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RP: And how about your, your mother? What was her name?

KO: Her first name was Saki, S-A-K-I.

RP: S-A-K-I.

KO: And I guess --

RP: She probably gets confused with sake.

KO: Yeah, that's what I keep thinking. And I have to be careful, too, because once in a while, I write it out in a hurry. And if I don't take the, write that very last letter properly, it looks like sake. [Laughs] Sake, right.

RP: What was her maiden name, Kinge?

KO: I believe it was Ogawa.

RP: Ogawa.

KO: O-G-A-W-A. I'd have to look it up on my birth certificate to find out.

RP: And so most, like you mentioned, most of the marriages, Issei marriages were arranged marriages.

KO: Well, yeah, sort of.

RP: Was that the case with your parents?

KO: My mother didn't. She and her sister came over on their own. They had reasons, too, and they picked up their husbands over here. And I guess they were, like my father, they were the adventurous type. But anyway, they didn't want to stay and get married to some farmer or peasant or something like that, so they came over. They both, well, my mother, I guess, married my father, who was essentially about that time had a small business in Sacramento. And her sister essentially did the same thing with somebody in Stockton.

RP: A small business?

KO: Yeah.

RP: Now, your father's small business was a grocery store?

KO: No, no, it was more of a whatchamacallit... not a department store, dry goods store. The Depression came along, and everybody lost their businesses, essentially. My aunt, my mother's sister's business hung on for a few more years after that, but this was back in the '30s, so their business sort of petered out, too. But by that time, it wasn't too bad. And I guess the second eldest, the second elder son, I remember my father sort of helped him through med school at UC. And he was able to establish a practice. This is just about the wartime, so when things went to pot for them, they had essentially, they moved to Chicago, and my cousin set up his practice in Chicago. I forget where he had a practice. I think he was with one of the children's hospitals or something like that. I don't know where it was.

RP: So your cousin moved before the war broke out?

KO: Yeah, just before the war broke out. He essentially had to... well, I shouldn't say he had to, but they sort of went and... what it was is I think he had an elder cousin, or elder brother. He's pretty old, he's older than me. But he had an elder brother who had a job in Chicago, so they moved over to join them. And very interestingly, that family became more or less a professional family. He had a cousin, he had a brother who was my age who became a dentist in Chicago, and he had an elder brother, I forget what his profession was, but it wasn't dentist, it wasn't medical, but it was something, semi-professional of some sort. And he had an elder, much elder sister who went into opera of all things. And she sang, I guess, the lead in Madame Butterfly just before the war, in '40 or '41 at San Francisco. I forgot which opera company she was with at that time. But she sang, I guess, one season or two there. One lead, I guess, and then she went through, just before the war, or a year or two before the war, she went to Italy to study. And from what I understand, she got married to an Italian baron or something. And from what I understand -- all of this is third-hand, but the way -- my ears are big, so I keep listening to all these, sort of, tales and stuff. But apparently, the opera singer cousin, well, this baron had, I guess, even during Mussolini's period, had a fair amount of property. During the war, when the 442nd Infantry Battalion went, worked up the peninsula, when they got into her area, she would entertain a few of these soldiers... not entertain in the entertainment sense, but just have dinner or whatever it is. Essentially at that time, by that time, Italy was on our side, so it worked out pretty well for everybody.

RP: Especially the 442nd.

KO: Yeah. And they went through that area, so it was very convenient for them. And they had some way of spending some of their leave time, I guess, in the Italian towns and areas based like that.