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MR: Earlier you were talking about your parents and their life as they aged, and I'm wondering when your, when the war was over and your father and mother were reunited again and back in Portland, how was your father's attitude about what he'd experienced?

YH: I don't know, but I was looking back, and my sister Kazi was home then and I think my other sister got there, but I wasn't at home when they met. And I was told, I read this -- this is from Kazi, my younger sister, and she went on the train with him, got to Portland, and then they got a cab, I think, and got home, to our house. And they said Mom opened the door, and there's a little anteroom there, brick, just a small room, like a closet, but she said they got in the living room and they just looked at each other and they don't hug or anything. And I mean, this is four years. And they, she said they bowed to each other, and I was reading this and I thought, well isn't that -- and I could just see my mother smiling and my dad, but she didn't say that in there, but she said they bowed and then they said, she said something in Japanese. I forgot what term it was, but meaning "it's been a long time." And then they just sort of looked at each other, and I thought, oh my gosh, they didn't shake hands, anything, but that, their feeling just seemed to flow between the two of 'em. And they went, from then on they were so happy. They were just real, I mean, it was so long for her. Well, for him too, but he did woodwork to keep himself busy. He made that table there, over there, out of a piece of oak. He brought it home from Santa Fe. He found it there, he brought it home, he carved it, with a saw, handsaw, did all of it, and he made that lovely table that I really like. My younger sister had it, and she said she didn't want to take it to Hawaii 'cause the, it'd get ruined, so she, I said, "I'll keep it for you." She came back and she wanted it, and I gave it to her. Then when she was ill and dying, I thought she'd give it back to me. I didn't ask her for it. She said, "That goes to Edwin," her nephew. And I didn't, I just thought, well, she wants to give it to him, that's her prerogative, so I didn't say anything. But I dearly love that piece, and I mentioned it to Edwin. I says, "Yeah, we still have it. You have to come and get it." He says, "Do you want it, Auntie Yone?" I said, "Well, I really love it, but she gave it to you, and if you want it..." He says, "If you want it," and he kept saying that, so I thought, well maybe he wants to give it to me. And then I talked to my daughter, and she said, "You know, Edwin really wants it." I said, "Well, why didn't he say so?" [Laughs] And she said, "No, he did, but he thought if you wanted it..." I says, "He, I don't want it that badly that he would want it. It should go on to the next generation." So I'm waiting for him to come and pack it. It's gonna stay here as long as, I decided I'm not gonna pack it up. If he wants it he can come and get it. And it's, it's really a neat piece. And the vase on top and that, he made all that. He'd get, that's what kept him busy, doing all this woodwork. And when, he'd get the pine needles and he'd weave them into rope, just to keep his hands busy. And he's made all these things. He made the stand below there, he's made vases, and I have quite a few. And the kids, he made little vases about that big that he'd carve out of branches, and they're about that big around and like that, and he'd pack them up. And he has one with me, "Miss Yoneko Inuzuka" on the back, and it's his handwriting and it's still stuck on there. I have that in my windowsill there. But it's, he did all this kind, and then when he got home he made us all a trunk, sort of like a hope chest thing. And we moved here and I had it, and all these years I've been looking for it, and I accused one of my kids of taking it to school and finally my younger says, "You know, I bet it was stolen when your house was robbed." And then it dawned on me, that's exactly what happened. I had forgotten. And the one he made for me had my initials on it. It's gone, but I think it's, that's the one that was stolen. But he kept busy. He's just one of those.

And my mother did, in camp, a lady from, I don't know where she came from, Idaho, and she had all this leather goods, beads, and she had all these ladies that were in Minidoka, "And if you work, make beads, we'll sell them and you can make money." And it was so little, but it was enough to keep them busy. My mother, when she came back, she was still doing it. And I said, she made not even, what, like ten cents -- moccasins, those two little moccasins that are clipped together -- I don't think she was making ten cents a pair, and yet she worked, put beads on them. And she did that for so long, until she, then she came back from the war and she did housework, which, she's not a very good housekeeper. And she did housework for this family; they're, they lived in east Moreland, and she's an artist, but a real nice family. Of course, you wouldn't go to someone that was a bad family, I guess, but she'd call her Tomi, and that sort of offended me. I thought, "She's not Tomi," but that is her name. But it just, 'cause she was such a gracious woman, and I sort of felt like it was sort of, it's like the doctors call you by your first name but they want to be called Doctor, you know? But she did housework for quite a few years, and I think it, she didn't mind. They treated her nicely and she learned things that she never knew before, and it kept her busy and she got an income. And she had a way of saving her money, and when I got married she wanted to buy me a nightgown and pearls that were, they weren't real, but she wanted me to have a pair, and little things that surprised me. But she had saved her money so I could have these things. And other than that, she just kept busy. She liked the yard. She couldn't work -- physically, she wasn't real strong, but she could do this night work and stuff, and it kept her content.

<End Segment 21> - Copyright © 2003 Oregon Nikkei Endowment and Densho. All Rights Reserved.