<Begin Segment 13>

MR: You mentioned you have, is it eleven, did you say, grandchildren?

YD: I have eleven grandchildren. And on my eighty-eighth birthday, I mentioned the fact that out of two people who were strangers became five with three children, and now there is eleven grandchildren. Nine are girls and two are boys. They're not girls, they're women and men now, and then I have three great-grandchildren. And my husband being from Fukuoka in the early days, I think he would have been horrified if he ever thought that any of our children would be married to foreigners. But in later years when Robert went to Germany in the army for three years, it, to me, was one of the most wonderful things that could have happened was when Robert came back and walked in the door. He said in Japanese, German, he says, "Where's your Fraulein?" And I was amazed, and I thought, "Papa, what are you saying?" And I think he would be very happy to know that four of my granddaughters are married to foreigners. [Laughs] One is Hungarian, and they have the two great-grandsons. And one is married to, he's American, but he's of German descent. And the other two, I think they are just pure American. But I think my husband would be the first to be very happy that they're all wonderful people, and it's too bad he's not here with us.

MR: Is there any subject that you would like to go back to and say more about?

YD: I don't know if there's any Issei here, I mean, Niseis here that have gone through, the fact that I have documents of my diary that you probably can't see here, but it's all in calligraphy. And when a girl gets married in Japan, everything she takes to the groom is written down, that in case there's a separation or divorce which in Japan at that time there never, we never heard of a divorce, you knew exactly what you took with you and... it's interesting. It tells you even about how many towels you brought or how many, in Japan, there's, you count the different tansu that you bring, and it's called isso. In the olden days, they would put the tansu on a huge bamboo pole and take it from your family to your husband's family. This is in the olden days. Of course, it's never done like that anymore. But even if you had your things transferred into a truck, you'd put it, put the tansu on these poles. And then if there's one tansu, it's called isso or nisso, whatever, and that showed how much dowry you brought. And then in my memo in my documents, it goes back to how many zori you had or how many towels you had, everything was written down here. And one time in my life, I said, "I want a divorce," and so my husband said, "Okay, if you could find anybody better than me, you're welcome to divorce." And someplace in all the stuff that I had, I think I have a copy of that. Of course, it was just a threat. And I brought this out, and I said, "Well, I've used a lot of the stuff that I have in here, so I guess I can't divorce." [Laughs] At the very end of it is very interesting because I have, the last item in there is five yen, five yen, and I think my husband thought that because I was from America, he thought he was going to marry a rich woman, but there was only five yen. But even at that time, I've tried to remember. I think my husband received probably about ninety yen as a salary, and that was very good salary at that time.

And I also have a memo in that when I was first married, everything that I bought, I would write down. And if you would look at it, it even shows where I bought a cake of tofu or a bunch of onions, and it's like three cent or five cent or whatever it is, and I was very diligently writing all this down every day. So it does show that I had a lot of time on my hands at that time because there is nothing else to do but cook and sew and clean house until the babies came. Then I have this diary that shows that there was a time when I was, wrote everything in Japanese except for things that I really wanted to explain to myself, and then I find that it's in English. But my Japanese at this time was very formal, and it's almost like reading a book that is the very formal Japanese. And I wrote, and I even called my tutor Keiko-chan or Ryo-chan instead of just plain Keiko. And I called my husband Shujin which means actually "lord and master" which never meant much. [Laughs]

But in all, there were some tragedies, but I've been very fortunate that my husband used to use the, an old saying is, "San kan, shi on," which means three cold and four warmth. In other words, there's always more fortunate things happening than sad things. So there's three cold and four warmth which means in the olden days that there is always much more happiness than sadness. So I've always told my grandchildren, I say, "I cry a lot, but my tears are more of happiness than sadness."

MR: Is there anything else that you would like to bring up or talk about?

YD: No. I thank you very much for giving me the privilege of telling you about, a little about my life. And if that helps with any of the other interviews, I'm very happy.

MR: Well, I thank you especially, and I thank you from the Nikkei Legacy Center as well.

YD: Well, I would like to thank you and Tim, Tim Rooney, for coming so early and fixing up all the stuff that I never knew that had to be done, and he's been here for several, several hours working on this. And I thank both of you very, very much for giving me the privilege of talking to you. Thank you very much.

<End Segment 13> - Copyright © 2003 Oregon Nikkei Endowment and Densho. All Rights Reserved.