Densho Digital Archive - George Matsumoto Interview (denshovh-mgeorge

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KP: So who was the first child born to your parents?

GM: That's me.

KP: That's you?

GM: Yeah, I was born in San Francisco, in July 19, 1924.

KP: And were you born at home?

GM: That I'm not too sure, but they used to have a midwife that comes to the different houses, and I think the first three of us were born in our home with the midwife.

KP: So what are the order of your other brothers and sisters?

GM: Well, we were two years apart. My first brother was Bill, Hideo, second was Dave, Hiroshi, and next one was Fred, Shigeru. And next one after that was Mae, Masako, and everybody was rejoicing because finally had a girl.

KP: Were these all born, all these born in San Francisco?

GM: No, just the three, first three were born in San Francisco, then we moved to Ocean Park. That was a part of Santa Monica, suburb. And --

KP: What year was that?

GM: That was 1929.

KP: So you do have some memories of San Francisco?

GM: Oh, yeah. I wrote a piece on the, I remember the first talkie. That was 1927. That was the jazz singer. A friend of my family took me to a restaurant, and I remember eating beets and I thought, "Gee, that was great." Pickled beets, I never had before, so I always remember that. And then they took me to this movie and I couldn't understand what this big fuss was about, but it was the first talkie. You know, Al Jolson, The Jazz Singer. And then there're a lot of things that I remember. I remember my mother taking me down to the beach one time and it was very cold, even in summertime, San Francisco's very cold. And I don't know where, well, she bought herself and her lady friend and me hot dogs, and I was sittin' there, and I'm a little kid, baby almost, but a little friendly dog came running out from somewhere, I don't know where. I'm sittin' and the dog is trying to get my hot dog, and I'm holding it like this [raises arm over head], but I'm just a little kid, so finally he, after leaping at my hot dog couple times, the wiener slipped out. The dog just grabbed it and ran off. And here I'm crying; my mother just told me, "Be quiet." [Laughs] She's too busy talkin' to her lady friend, but here, it's a traumatic experience for me so I remember that, and people ask me, "How old were you?" I says, since my brother wasn't born yet and he was two years after me, so I was less than two years old. They can't believe it.

But after he was born I remember doing bad things. One was that I got into my father's camera. Couldn't figure out how the pictures was taken, so I took a knife and... it was one of those foldout cameras, so that was the end of his camera. We did some bad things. My, we lived in a second floor of a flat, and I can still see my brother goin' down to the landing out front, and he'd grab the milk bottle, and they were glass in those days. And he came crawling up to the top of the second floor and the bottle slipped, and I can still see it rolling down (...) the stairs, and at the bottom it, boom. [Laughs] Broke. There's milk all over, so my mother had to clean it up and we had to buy another bottle. I remember all these things. And then just before we went to Ocean Park, the Graf Zeppelin came by. It was a big thing in those days. And it made two circles and it was soaring over everything, just leisurely made two passes and then went to Los Angeles. I still remember that.

KP: So that was, what year did you move down to L.A.?

GM: 1929. I remember then the Graf Zeppelin made a world tour (August 1929), and I think, I think it had come from Tokyo.

KP: And you, you remember seeing that?

GM: Oh, I remember that. I was five years.