<Begin Segment 4>

TI: Earlier you mentioned your house on Bainbridge Island. Can you describe that house for me? What was the house like?

YS: Oh, we had an upstairs and downstairs, it's one open, just upstairs all open. Bottom had a few rooms, the folks lived in the bottom, but we used to live upstairs. It was just a, kind of open house.

TI: When you say open house, so upstairs meaning just like one big...

YS: One room, yeah. And so many beds. Downstairs was one room, kitchen and a living room.

TI: And you said the house is still there?

YS: Yeah, it's still there.

TI: Does it look pretty much the same?

YS: Yeah. Well, see, my brother added a room when they went back after the war. And that's still there. They added one room and made it bigger.

TI: And how about things like plumbing? When you were growing up, did you have indoor plumbing?

YS: It was, yeah, it was all outdoor. It was just a well and a pump, and then I don't what year it was they got running water. But up to there it was just always pump, just everything we did was pump, and then carried water in the house. And then same with the bath, of course, we had to pump the water for the bath.

TI: Now you mentioned earlier that you were born in Rolling Bay, but the house was in Winslow? Where's the house?

YS: No, the house was in Rolling Bay. Right now there's a school there now where we were born, but we moved just a half a mile down the road. That's where they built the house.

TI: I forgot to ask, what was your mother's name?

YS: Mitsuo.

TI: And her maiden name, her last name before she married? Oh, that's okay if you can't remember.

YS: Just like Mitsuo, too, that's a boy's name, but that's her name. That was her name.

TI: And it sounds like she and your father grew up in, like in the same place in Japan?

YS: I think so.

TI: Same area?

YS: I think so.

TI: So tell me a little bit about your school on Bainbridge Island. What school did you go to?

YS: Well, we just catch a bus and go to Winslow. They called it Lincoln school, I think it was, yeah, Lincoln school.

TI: Okay. And Lincoln school, how many Japanese were... like in a class, how big was your class?

YS: Oh, there wasn't too many in that thing, but then probably two or three, some more.

TI: So two or three out of maybe twenty students or so?

YS: You mean Japanese?

TI: Yeah.

YS: Yeah, two or three, sometimes more. It just depends on the year. And then there was a school in Pleasant Beach, too, so there was Japanese going over there, too, and then Eagledale they had a school, too.

TI: But you mentioned earlier when the war started, there were, like, a couple hundred Japanese on Bainbridge Island?

YS: Yeah.

TI: So were there ever any community events where the Japanese got together?

YS: Oh, yeah. We had picnic and stuff, yearly picnic. All the Japanese, Filipinos would come, too. They always had a yearly picnic, but I don't know, I forget what year that started. They used to have it.

TI: And was there a special occasion? Was it like the Fourth of July?

YS: Yeah, it was after the berry season. I forget whether it was a special day or not.

TI: So kind of like in, later in July?

YS: Yeah, it was later, after the berries are done, they have a picnic. Yeah, everybody used to, it used to be quite a deal.

TI: So describe that for me. What was the picnic like? What did people bring for food?

YS: Well, you know what Japanese would bring.

TI: So things like rice balls, onigiri?

YS: Yeah, yeah. And then I think they gave... I think they gave us ice cream or something, I forget now. Yeah, it used to be quite a deal.

<End Segment 4> - Copyright © 2014 Oregon Nikkei Endowment and Densho. All Rights Reserved.