Densho Digital Archive - Hiro Takeuchi Interview (denshovh-thiro-01-0003)

<Begin Segment 3>

LD: After you returned from Japan, how old were you, and what happened right at that time?

HT: Well, let's see now, 1926, so that makes me eleven years old, came back. We came back as I said, in September. After we finished the harvesting, Dad says, let's go to Nihon and come back and then go back up on the farm. And we came back but the last day of the year, 31st, and then we moved back on the farm. And then no sooner we got back up there, that my mother took ill, and she had an appendix, ruptured appendix. And in those days, ruptured appendix was terminal, you know. But luckily she survived. But then someone had to take care of her home so I was elected, I guess. Anyway, I stayed home, took care of the family, did all the cooking and whatever the family need, washing and everything. And my brother was still young yet, my youngest brother, Tad was still, but anyway, I was, took care of the family and did all the washing and something. And as I look back now, I just can't see me doing it at eleven years old, but I did. And so anyway, that particular year, see we were gone three months in Nihon at September, see, and then we didn't go to school when we came back. So I didn't go to school for a whole year. For a whole year, I skipped school. And so, back then, we were on the farm. So during the fall, a lot of, so many times, we did stay out of school just to work on the farm, see. But that particular year I was still young yet, but then this what I had to do. So the following fall, we started school, you know. So they said the fifth grade, we just can't put you in the sixth grade because you didn't go to school and so I started the fifth grade. After fifth grade, after three weeks, I was promoted to sixth grade. So, yeah, I was real proud of that. So we're happy that she was able to the doctor. Things advanced. Nowadays, appendix is just a common thing, you know.

LD: Well, you must have been a good student and to be able to go from the fifth grade to the sixth grade so quickly.

HT: Yeah. I was pretty smart. [Laughs] No, but I did real well, you know.

LD: But, you were a good athlete also.

HT: Oh, all of us kids, we played, we were pretty athletic. So in grade school, we didn't. But as we got in high school going back, see we went to, all of us went to Corbett Grade School and high school, you know. There was a period, the period of twenty years that there was a Takeuchi in the school. And in high school, there was always one of us on the basketball team, yeah. In those days, we had basketball team and baseball team, but they never had football. The school board says it's too dangerous, so we didn't have it. But then, so we all participated in basketball, and we all lettered in basketball. And they didn't give letters, they lettered in basketball. They gave us a sweater too. That was a little something, yeah. But we didn't have no stripe. I don't think you have nowadays, but that's what they had in those days, you know.

LD: So you started with basketball, and then did you play baseball?

HT: We played, yes. We played baseball in high school. We played, and then of course as a Japanese community they had baseball teams too so we were pretty active in that. Well, there's five in the family, so we're all pretty active, yeah.