Densho Digital Archive - Jim Tsugawa Interview (denshovh-tjim

<Begin Segment 22>

AC: Let me back you up. How did you meet your wife? You said you met her at Oregon State, what was the first time you saw her?

JT: Okay, there was a kid from, Don Kimura and I were walking on the sidewalk at Oregon State, and these two gals were walking the other way. And I said, "Don, who is that cute lady over there?" And he said, "Her name is Amy Goda." So at Oregon State they had what they called a Fussers Guide. Fussers Guide was, every student's name was listed and a phone number. So I, that night I called her and I said, "You don't know me from the man in the moon, but would you like to go out for coffee?" And you know what she said? She said, "I'm sorry, but I don't go out on the weeknights. I study." That was a bunch of bull. So she got me for dinner that following Saturday. She said, "What am I going to hold out for just coffee? I wanted dinner." [Laughs] That's how we met.

AC: So where'd you take her?

JT: It was China... it was a Chinese restaurant there, and I took her to Chinese food. And that's how our romance started. [Laughs] So I graduated from Oregon State in '58 and she graduated in 1960.

AC: So she was down in Corvallis for two years and you were up in Portland, right, going to dental school?

JT: Let's see. Yeah, for a while there, and then between my freshman and sophomore year we got married. She had that term of summer school and term of student teaching.

AC: So how did that work going back and forth between Portland and Corvallis?

JT: It was tiring. [Laughs] Sleepy. Dangerous, I thought, holy cripe, sometimes I think there's just a wall like this, and I'd have to pull over and go to sleep. But it was worth it.

AC: So in '60 -- after you, she was student teaching, and you were just opening, you just graduated, you were just opening your practice, she was her last year of student teaching --

JT: No, no.

AC: So she was actually teaching, she got a job?

JT: Oh, yeah, she was teaching at Ainsworth grade school.

AC: And then your first child was born. Tell me about that.

JT: Well, it was a wonderful birth, Lisa, 1963 I think, yeah. And she was... now, see, Amy graduated Oregon State, I graduated Oregon State, Lisa graduated Oregon State. And our two grandchildren were at the University of Oregon, figured that, well, her dad is a University of Oregon grad. But I couldn't get 'em interested in dentistry, medicine, and Oregon State.

AC: So Lisa was born in '63.

JT: '63.

AC: Where were you living at the time?

JT: In a place called, in Beaverton, Baker Street. Before then we were in an apartment complex called Why Worry Lane, really. And then we bought a house, we bought a house, I was in practice, we bought a house on Baker Street in Beaverton.

AC: Now did your wife work with you at the time, or she was being a teacher?

JT: She taught up until the time that Lisa was born, and that was it. I don't know why I didn't make her go back to work. [Laughs]

AC: So you bought a place on Baker Street.

JT: Yes.

AC: When did you buy your current house?

JT: 1968, we moved out into the country. West Union Road in the Bethany area, and little red house on two acres. And had a little horse and little barn, it was a cute place. And then in 1972 we built a new home on Burton Street, which was about two miles closer to town. Best thing we ever did, because just two miles, and we always had to transport Lisa to friends', bring friends in, so this house that we built on Burton Street that she could walk to school, bring kids home, worked out great. And a very strategic spot, now that I think about it, because the hospital is just three and a half miles, physician is three miles, grocery stores are just a mile away, and little shops are just a mile away. Costco was three and a half miles away, so it was a perfect place.