<Begin Segment 3>

TR: Did your mother ever talk about what her life was like in Japan before she came over?

AN: No. You know, I think that's typical of all our parents. They didn't speak very much about it, and she had two sisters and, but she did go back to visit, oh, I'd say in the '30s, I think it was. And, yes, she, it was an easy life, you know. She, they just didn't do, they didn't do, have to do the work of the keeping house and so on since a maid did it. Oh, and then she took my brother with her. My brother and she went back to Japan, and he would speak about the maid that was there to do the work. They didn't think it was a very good idea for him to go in and talk to the maid.

TR: This would be a maid in her parent's home --

AN: Yes.

TR: In Japan?

AN: Uh-huh.

TR: So it sounds like, if they had a maid, it sounds like her family was reasonably well off?

AN: Oh, I don't know. In Japan, a maid was fairly common, I think. I think there was a gardener too, but it isn't like it is here. I could never have a maid or a gardener.

TR: Did she ever say what business her family was in?

AN: Sugar, something to do with sugar. They sold sugar I think.

TR: And was she from the same part of the country that your father was from?

AN: Tottori-ken, yes. Yanago.

TR: So when, when your parents got married, did they then live on the farm that the four men had rented?

AN: Yes. But by this time, there are only two, Mr. Fuji and my dad, and Mr. Takeuchi had gone back to Cascade to run a grocery store. And they lived together in the same house until they had six children under five between the two of them, and then they decided this is time to break up housekeeping, and a rather uproarious time you can imagine with that many children, and so they broke up the partnership but not the friendship. And then they had to divide all of this equipment and household goods and everything. How they were going to do, they couldn't remember who bought, who had purchased what, and so they decided by jan-ken-po.

TR: Who got what?

AN: Uh-huh, yes, uh-huh, yeah.

TR: So for a time, there were two couples and six children all living in the same probably small --

AN: Yes.

TR: -- farmhouse?

AN: Little tiny.

TR: And were you one of those children?

AN: Yes, yes.

TR: So how many brothers and sisters do you have and where are you in the pecking order?

AN: I have three older brothers, and I'm the last one.

TR: So there were four of you?

AN: Uh-huh. I can still remember when we were smoking out in the barn or garage or something, and I can still remember, I must have been, oh, three or four, something like that. I can remember rolling up a newspaper and oh dear, I guess my brothers --

TR: Was it tobacco?

AN: Well, no, not tobacco. I don't know what we used, probably seeds, those weed seeds. But anyway, it was enough to cause some damage because I remember the Ford caught fire. Oh dear, I can remember my brother hitting, trying to put the fire out. And my oldest brother George and I, I remember we ran out to my mother's, father where they were working. [Laughs] We were running back with them. I don't know. I can still remember the ditch, the little ditch by the side of the pathway. And so we were just running lickety-split back to the house, try to put the fire out. There was no terrible damage. I remember Roy hitting the upholstery, but then it didn't burn up, the whole thing didn't burn up.

TR: Tell me your three brothers' names?

AN: George, my oldest brother, Roy, and Raymond.

TR: Did they have Japanese names?

AN: Oh, yes.

TR: Do you remember what they were?

AN: George Kenichi and Roy Yoji and Raymond was Aizo.

TR: Did your parents call them by their English names or by their Japanese names?

AN: Oh, yes, yes, their English names.

<End Segment 3> - Copyright © 2004 Oregon Nikkei Endowment and Densho. All Rights Reserved.