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LT: Okay. Let's talk about your mom. What was her name and where was she born?

SA: She was born in Okayama. Itsu Ono was her maiden name.

LT: Okay. And do you know what kind of work her family did in Japan?

SA: Well, her dad, her dad was a school principal. And I think they had a little plot, raised rice. I visited their place, Betty and I and Kathy, that was around 1970 or something like that.

LT: Okay. So your mother also had quite a bit of education in Japan.

SA: Well, not really. Well, I guess it's education. She went to a sewing school. But she never went to high school.

LT: And what does one do at a sewing school?

SA: Learn how to sew, knit. I remember at home, she used to knit a sweater, sleeveless sweater for us. Started with the oldest brother, George, Nob, and I.

LT: So you all benefited from sewing school.

SA: Oh, definitely. She used to do a lot of mending and so forth after supper.

LT: Why was sewing school so important in Japan?

SA: Some what?

LT: Why was sewing school so important for young women in Japan?

SA: Well, if they become housewives, it's a useful thing.

LT: Okay. Your mother came to the United States when she was a teenager.

SA: Seventeen, I think.

LT: Okay.

SA: She came as a "picture bride."

LT: What do you know about those arrangements.

SA: I remember Mom talking about, said, "Gee, this fellow's not good looking like the photo they sent." [Laughs]

LT: When she met him?

SA: But she said in Japan she was always told Japan is the most beautiful place on earth. But she said when she landed in Seattle, she couldn't believe there was another place just as, maybe more beautiful than Japan.

LT: So that was a surprise to her.

SA: Yeah.

LT: Well, so why would she want to leave a country where she was, she had family, and come to another country over the ocean, across the ocean, where she didn't know the language and she didn't know the culture?

SA: I imagine her folks figured there's no place for her in Japan and in the family, so they wanted her to become a mother somewhere. And Mom used to say in Japan they used to hear stories that money grew on trees, which it does really, if you think about it, apple, cherries, it's money on the tree, if you don't lose money on the tree. [Laughs]

LT: So you said that in Japan, the family didn't think there was a place for her. Can you explain that?

SA: No, I don't know, really.

LT: She wasn't the oldest daughter, was she?

SA: No. Of course, they arranged the marriage over there through the relatives.

LT: Okay.

<End Segment 2> - Copyright © 2013 Oregon Nikkei Endowment and Densho. All Rights Reserved.