Densho Digital Archive - Michiko Kornhauser Interview (denshovh-kmichiko

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SG: When did your husband pass away?

MK: November 17, 1993. When I woke up, he was dead. That's the worst experience I've ever had.

SG: Where were you living at that time?

MK: Here, this house. I couldn't believe because after he retired, he said, "Thank you so much for being a good wife. You always helped me. So from now on, let me prepare at least your breakfast." So, every morning I waited. I couldn't get up. I tried to help, and he thought I was insulting him, so I always waited for him to wake me up by smacking the back of the pot. That's the sign I'm supposed to get up and wash my face. One day, I waited, no sound came. And when I came here, two glasses, juice glasses, are already on the table, but he wasn't here. When I went into the family room, he was dead watching TV. Yeah. So that was the worst experience I had in my life.

SG: How did you end up in Portland?

MK: That's, one year in 1984, my uncle, my mother's brother, was to receive some kind of emperor's award. And when I received that information, my uncle, my favorite uncle who always treated me so well, when I grew up without my father, he was my father figure, and then, "Michiko, would you like to come?" So I said, of course, I wanted to come to celebrate the occasion, so I went. When I was there, I saw on television Love from Oregon, the movie. I was looking at it. Then I looked at the newspaper, everybody is deserting Oregon because of job market. They are all going to Texas or California. So when I came back to Hawaii, I said to my family, "We are looking for a place to retire anyway, and Hawaii is no place to retire to us, and let's go to Portland, find a place." They said, "Why Portland?" But let's go find out because we had already investigated Washington, D.C., and I didn't like the weather, and I knew I liked Seattle as a student, so we came to Portland. Then we had only one week and found it, found a house. And then I wasn't going to live here. I thought I'll use this place as a rental and then get house somewhere else. But after he retired in '86 and I thought I would have about one month before the furniture arrives, I said, I could find a house. But the furniture came before we arrived here. And then all this furniture in here, it cost $8,000 to move, and another move would be just another expense that we didn't want to pay, so we ended up here. You know, that's the way it is, and I think this is a very lovely place, a little bit too small for me, but it's good excuse not to have people as far as he's concerned. George doesn't like parties. [Laughs]