Densho Digital Archive - Ed Fujii Interview (denshovh-fed-01-0009)

<Begin Segment 9>

MH: After the war, I mean, you served in the army for a while, right? What did you do after you came back from the army?

EF: Well, I stayed around the farm for a while, then I went to school on the GI Bill, trade school. So I must have been dedicated to the farm because I only spent about six weeks off the farm, so I never took more than one year to finish the course. But other than that, I stayed on the farm.

MH: What kind of activities did they have after the war for Japanese Americans?

EF: Well, they started bowling and those things, so things really started to pick up after that. I think it was 1947 when they had returned to bowling and those things, so they had a lot of activities. And most of the organizations were all started up, so it was a very comfortable situation as far as I was concerned, and we never ran into any hostility or anything like that.

MH: Where did you meet your wife?

EF: I met her out in Nyssa, Oregon, when we both working out in the sugar beets. And her family also all came out to Nyssa after we returned. After the two-week period, they also all went out there, so that's where I met her.

MH: And when did you get married?

EF: 1950. July of 1950.

MH: That's quite a span between the time you met her and when you got married.

EF: Yeah. Yeah. Well, she went to school. She went to Oregon State, and I was, you know, when they got back, I was back involved in the farming.

MH: So you did date her?

EF: Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.

MH: What kind of activities did you do when you dated her?

EF: Oh, just nothing special, nothing special. If they had a dance or something, we went, you know.

MH: They had dances?

EF: Yeah. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah, like at the Buddhist church, you know, the old Buddhist church and those places. A lot of people were coming back so a lot of familiar faces around.

MH: How many children do you have?

EF: We have three.

MH: What are their names and what do they do?

EF: Scott is the oldest. He was, he lives in Hawaii, and he works for the Bank of Hawaii. He's been there for about twenty years now, and Scott is divorced, so he's got a home on Hawaii Kai. He's doing well; he's doing very well. Becky, number one daughter, is in Eugene, and she's a schoolteacher and very active in the school negotiation team for the teachers, very active. She has one daughter named Yoko, and her husband is a physician in Eugene. My youngest is Tammy. She lives in Seattle, and she's an Oregon State graduate also, and she's active in, I don't know what you really call that company but very, has a variety of items that they're involved in not only manufacturing but selling, so it keeps her quite busy, and she has one son named Griffin.

MH: It sounds like education was very important, is that true?

EF: Very important, yeah. They all got a college education, and they didn't waste any time taking off. The minute they graduated they were gone, so they did well.

MH: And do you get together quite often?

EF: Oh, yeah, yeah. Oh, yeah, yeah. Three or four times a year, we have a family gathering, so we're --

MH: So that's really important to you?

EF: Oh, very important, very important.

MH: Besides bowling, what other activities are you involved in in your retirement?

EF: I golf a little bit and other, you know, club activities involved in the veterans and those things and a little bit of church, so keeps me busy. And I got a lot of yard here to take care of, so that alone when you get to be eighty years old gets to be a full-time job.