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LT: Okay. So, Taylor, as I said, we'll begin by simply asking you questions about you and your family and their immigration to the United States, and then your early childhood and the events before World War II, then the war, and camp, your military service, and then returning to Hood River and how you resettled in your later life in Hood River, okay? And it occurs to me that while you are ninety-two, your father was ninety-five when I interviewed him...

TT: Is that right?

LT: ...in 1985. So you're actually younger than your father was when we spoke. So, great. So, Taylor, when were you born and where were you born?

TT: February 17, 1922, in Odell.

LT: Okay. And Odell is part of what community?

TT: Hood River.

LT: Okay. What can you tell me about Odell?

TT: Well, I don't remember too much about where I was born. I hardly remember anything about when I was young. Two or three or four, I don't remember hardly anything, and then we moved to a place called Mt. Hood, no, Middle Valley, and my dad raised strawberries there. And I think we stayed there, and I went to grade school in this Middle Valley. It was a two-room school. Just had two teachers. I went there 'til sixth grade, and then the next year they closed that down and they bused us to Mount Hood grade school, so I went there for one year. And then my dad sold the place, so before we bought that place we live now, and then he worked for Kiyokawas for a year or so. So I went to Dee grade school in my eighth grade, eighth grade, and started my freshman year in Hood River junior high. In the meantime, we moved to, bought this place. I was supposed to go to Odell, but I drove my car down to, partway, the bus came by there, it used to be Loggers Lodge, and we used to park our car there and catch the bus and go, my sister and I, to Hood River. I was a freshman and she was a sophomore, so finished out the school that way. And then the next year, sophomore year, I started Odell, and so I graduated from Odell in 1940.

LT: Thank you for summarizing your life in a few minutes. That's really a helpful overview of what you've done. Now what I'd like to do is ask you more questions about details about your life from your early childhood. And just to confirm, your full name at your birth was?

TT: Taylor Tomita, yeah.

LT: Okay. Was there any significance to your name?

TT: No, not that I know of. I don't know where he picked up that name.

LT: So your dad named you?

TT: Yeah, my dad did.

LT: And some Nisei had Japanese names as well.

TT: Yeah. I just didn't have one.

LT: Okay. Well, can you tell us your father's name and where he was born?

TT: It was Chiho Tomita, and he was born in Japan, Fukushima.

LT: Okay. And I believe he was born on March 2, 1890.

TT: Yeah.

<End Segment 1> - Copyright © 2014 Oregon Nikkei Endowment and Densho. All Rights Reserved.