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AC: So your family spent time in Seattle, and you were born in Hillsboro. When did your parents move from Seattle to Hillsboro?

JT: That I don't know. That I don't know, but they migrated down to the Oregon, and his friends went east of the river and he went west of the river into the Hillsboro area.

AC: Do you know why he made that decision?

JT: No.

AC: And did your parents know each other while they were in Japan?

JT: I wished I knew.

AC: You don't know?

JT: Yeah.

AC: Was there a large age difference between your parents?

JT: Parents were ten years' difference. And a story told about Dad, he went back to (Japan), he came to America, and then went back for a bride, I guess, I don't know how he met Mom. And as I was told by my sister, that Dad was very handsome, black, shiny hair, and when they got married, and then they migrated to, immigrated to the U.S., and right away his hair got whiter and whiter. He was premature white, he had dyed his hair black to court Mom. [Laughs]

AC: What did your mom think of all that?

JT: I don't know.

AC: What was your father's, what was his personality like?

JT: That I don't know. That I don't know, but I think he was a very strict, regimented man. I think he was, but, you know, being not even one year old. I was one year old when he passed away.

AC: Do you remember what he passed away from?

JT: Yes. Nobody knew in the family, just that he died of cancer, but I was very curious, so I went to the Bureau of Statistics, and Dad died of lung cancer, and Mom died of colon cancer.

AC: Was your father a smoker?

JT: Yes, sir. And I guess he had a sore that never healed right here.

AC: So what was your mother like? What was her personality?

JT: She was very nice. I remember she was very kind, nice, and a beautiful woman, very pretty woman. And that's all I remember. That's the pits, you know, at that age, like when Mom died I was eleven, and you know, at that time, eleven year olds don't delve back in the history of your parents and what they did. You just didn't, well, most kids wouldn't.

AC: So after your parents passed away, who took care of you?

JT: I guess we took care of ourselves, really. I think we're getting ahead of the story, but my brother, George, who was exempt from the army because he was our guardian, and there was Mom and I and Helen in Boise.

AC: All right, we'll come back to that.

JT: Okay, yes.

<End Segment 3> - Copyright © 2013 Oregon Nikkei Endowment and Densho. All Rights Reserved.