Densho Digital Archive - George Uchida - Leo Uchida Interview (denshovh-ugeorge

<Begin Segment 6>

RP: Who came after Mary?

GU: Ruby Nakano.

RP: What do you remember about Ruby?

GU: She was a, I remember myself, as a disciplinarian herself. Well, one time, this was when I was, like, seven, six, seven years old, I used to catch dragonflies, and I would tie a string to the tail and let it fly off. Well, she caught me doing that, she gave me the same treatment. She tied me to a bed, bedpost because of that. [Laughs] Other than that... because she married early and moved to, lived in Los Angeles for a while, I didn't have too much recollection of her at the farm.

RP: She married before the war?

GU: Oh, yes. I don't remember what year it was.

RP: And she was the one that married Fred Nakano?

GU: Yes. She's Grace's mother.

RP: Dr. Ruby?

GU: After Ruby was Elmer... I think, at that time, he was the only one that actually went beyond high school.

LU: He went to Sacramento junior college. And I don't know how long he went, but those years, I heard people talking that, "What's the use of going to college, because you can't get a job, good jobs." But anyway, he, I don't know whether he graduated or not, but I think he learned enough to, with another friend of his, they started a market in Lodi, California. And I think that's where he worked until the evacuation. I remember, I think between the two of them, once or twice a month he used to take a day off, so he used to come home on the weekends. But all the other time, I guess he was living in Lodi, California.

RP: Was he married at the time?

LU: No. He got married in camp.

GU: In your interviews, have you ever run into any family named Sakakihara?

RP: What was the name again?

GU: Sakakihara. Anyway, they were a family in Florin that we knew. Anyway, one of the boys in that family was named Harry. And Harry's the one that Leo's talking about that Elmer did the, worked together in the market.

RP: Sasaki? Harry Sasaki?

GU: No, Sakakihara. That's the whole name.

LU: Sa-ka-ki-hara.

RP: That was a, that was a Florin family?

GU: Yes.

RP: So Elmer kind of broke away from the farm life and decided he wanted to start a business in Lodi? Who was your next sibling after Elmer?

GU: It was a sister named Ruth. She, in her, I guess she was in the teens, she contracted TB. So I only remember her being in a sanitarium, and she died from that.

RP: When did she die?

GU: This was before the war.

LU: Yeah, maybe about, oh, about three years before the evacuation, something like that.

RP: She would have been a teenager?

GU: Yeah.

RP: And where was the sanitarium? Was it in Sacramento?

GU: No, Chico. Chico, California.

RP: A tuberculosis sanitarium.

LU: It's near Chico, but the place was called Wiemer. W-I-E-M-E-R.

GU: That's the name of the sanitarium, huh? Wiemer Sanitarium.

RP: Were there any visits from the family?

LU: Yeah, I still remember that whenever my dad went to visit, or mom or dad, he would take, oh, about three of us together, we would go visit her. I remember riding. Because living on the farm those days, we hardly went anywhere. And to go out of the cities on a trip, it was a, kind of a big thing for me, anyway.

GU: Yeah. [Addressing LU] Do you ever remember going into the hospital?

LU: No.

GU: 'Cause when I went, I only remember that we stayed in the car all the time, when they were visiting.

LU: She was able to come out and sometimes we used to sit on the lawn or the bench and talk to her.

GU: I don't remember that at all.

LU: Those days, for TB, I guess they figure high up in the mountain, fresh air is the best place for them, I guess.

RP: So she died at the sanitarium?

LU: Yes.