Densho Digital Archive - Sumi Saito Interview (denshovh-ssumi-01-0011)

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AC: For you, a junior in college, and who should come wandering onto campus but Paul. And how did you get reacquainted?

SS: Well, I remember him coming to a dance at Waldo, where I lived. I must have asked him. [Laughs] And I don't know, we went on a double date after we got home for Christmas with friends we knew, and I guess that's when we started dating.

AC: Now, you knew each other beforehand, but you were trying to get him hooked up with one of your other friends.

SS: Yeah. This girl from Ontario was catching rides with us, and she was a little older than I. I thought, Paul doesn't have a girlfriend, so I made her sit in the middle next to Paul in the front. [Laughs] It didn't click.

AC: On her side or his side?

SS: His side. [Laughs] I think she liked Paul.

AC: And so all of a sudden he started paying more attention to you?

SS: I guess. Oh, dear. I think I had a boyfriend at that time, so I wasn't really interested in him.

AC: So what happened?

SS: Oh, I can't remember that far. Or I don't want to remember, I guess. Anyway...

AC: Now, I guess there was a tradition at Oregon Agricultural College that every leap year there was a thing called a Leap Dance, Leap Year Dance?

SS: Oh, that's what Paul was talking about, but what I remembered was... what is that? Lil' Abner and Daisy Mae?

AC: Sadie Hawkins Day.

SS: Sadie Hawkins Day, that's what I remember. But maybe Paul thought it was a Leap Year dance, but it was Sadie Hawkins, and you're supposed to go find a man, you know. [Laughs] And I think I asked Paul to that thing.

AC: But you also made him a little gift?

SS: Oh, a corsage with cigars. [Laughs] I think that's what he remembers, he said it had three cigars on it.

AC: Do you remember making that for him?

SS: I don't remember, but he remembers it because it had cigars on it, I guess. Well, he used to smoke cigars. He never smoked cigars in the house, and my daughters and I used to complain about his cigar smoking. He quit for four months one time and the three of us never even noticed. [Laughs] Isn't that awful? Oh, gosh.

AC: So after seeing each other for a couple years, you decided to get married.

SS: Uh-huh. Well, I guess when we got engaged, he decided he'd better stay home and farm, and so he quit school. And then, so we got married in December over the Christmas holidays. I wasn't quite finished with school, and then he was gonna come back and finish school, and he came back for winter term, so we lived on campus married. And then he decided... well, I got pregnant with the twins, and I guess it was just overwhelming, he decided he'd better stay home and farm. So that's what happened.

AC: So you moved back to Ontario and began farming?

SS: Yes. And a year after we were married, we had these twin boys. Our anniversary is the twenty-seventh of December, and they were born December 26th. And then when we thought we wouldn't have any children for three or four years, 'cause we had twins, but here come Marilyn twenty months later, so we had these three little kids in diapers for a while. Then we had a little respite, five years, and had Paul Jr. and Cathy. So we had five kids all together.

AC: Where are they now and what are they doing?

SS: [Coughs] Excuse me. Our two older sons are farming in Weiser, and our daughter is in Portland -- our oldest daughter Marilyn -- and our third son is Paul Jr., living in Moses Lake. I think my voice is leaving me. Our youngest is Cathy, and she's single and she's a graphic designer in Seattle.