<Begin Segment 10>

SG: So Mrs. Onchi said you were married, so it sounds like you were married during World War II?

JO: Yeah. We got married in World War II, 1944. It's fifty-eight years now; it'd be fifty-nine coming up, I guess. I'm hoping to maybe get sixty years together. I don't know.

SG: So what was, you met your wife in the camp?

JO: Yes. I met her at the camp in Jerome. Like I said, I got married on a three day pass down there. We got married in the camp. I had a minister there, and most of our family were there. And our first son was born while we were in the camp... I mean, no. She was in Minneapolis, and I was oversea when our first son was born.

SG: How did you meet your wife?

JO: We just met at the camp, and we seem to get along good, and I used to go there on the weekend pass, and we correspond after that, and we decide to get married in the camp.

SG: What was the wedding like in the camp?

JO: Well, of course, I was up there, and I get married. I don't know how other people feel, but I just wondered, what am I doing up here, you know, getting married. I don't know. That's what I felt. But anyway, I got married in the camp.

SG: Was it traditional Japanese wedding?

JO: It was Japanese minister and then Japanese wedding in the camp, so there's only few people got together and the close friends. I got married in the camp.

SG: Did your wife have a wedding gown or --

JO: No, just a regular dress. I had my uniform on. My brother was there and best man was there. People, mostly just friend of the camp.

SG: What was the celebration like?

JO: Well, there was no really celebration in the camp, got married in camp and went to the town right below, what is that town, in Mississippi there. They went to camp, and we got a place in Hattiesburg, what they call Hattiesburg, and that's where my wife stayed. And I commute to the camp every day, taking my soldier's duty, Camp Shelby. And I would go home every night to home. We had a home there for --

SG: So it sounds like the, there wasn't... no special food or anything for the wedding and no honeymoon?

JO: No. The only honeymoon we had is just being there together. I mean that's about all I could say is we were lucky enough to get, before I went oversea, I had to take her to Minidoka -- no, Heart Mountain to where she stayed with the folks. Her folks was in Heart Mountain, Wyoming, so I took her back over there and rode back on the train. There's no planes; so there's train. Then I got my order to go to oversea. So I was in Fort Meade for a while for a month or so, and they decided to send us to Germany. So that's when I ended up in Germany for a whole year.

SG: Fighting in World War II?

JO: Yeah. I was clean up over there, more or less. Then I had enough points, so I came back, discharged from Germany after four years of service.

SG: What year were you discharged?

JO: Discharged in '46, I guess, four years after I went in.

SG: So I'll ask you a couple more questions about the, your wedding. In the camp, so what did you have to do in terms of, as a groom for the ceremony?

JO: Well, there's nothing I could do. My family was there. My brother and my mother was there, and her family was there. It so happened that when they left Portland here, I don't know how they did it. Because of relative, they request to certain group and my wife's family and our, they didn't know, but they, so happened, they ended up in Tule Lake together. And since her family, I don't know where they have the connection with my wife's family. But anyway, they ended up in Jerome, Arkansas. And that's why, where she was working in the camp, and that's where I met and I, only way I had to meet her during the weekend on pass, so we had certain time. I called her on the phone, and she would be there at the pay phone because there is no way we could make contact. We had certain time to call, and she would be there at the phone. And that's the only way, and we wrote letters, and that's how we communicated. Then I had Mr., my oldest brother's, they were all together family, so I asked him to, I believe, I purchased a ring, I think. I gave it to him to give it to her, the ring. And that's how we... of course, I guess I asked her to marry, I guess, and that was the only way I could give the ring, in fact. I get a friend to give my ring to her.

SG: You asked her over the telephone or you wrote her a letter?

JO: Well, I don't know how, both way, I guess. Yeah. She says she wanted to get married, and we decided okay, we'll get married then. And that's how we got married.

SG: Do you remember the first time meeting your wife?

JO: It was a short, I think it was only six months or so we decided to get married. You know, she's in the camp, and I'm in the army. We couldn't see what's going to happen in the future, but we just lived day-to-day, I guess.

SG: Do they have, when you went to the camp and when, were certain celebrations or festivals that allowed you to meet?

JO: Well, there was no celebration or festival, just among the family got together, and that was about all I could remember at the, in the camp there, that room in the camp. There was no other way. You can't go out of camp. So we got married in the camp, and that's about all I could say.

<End Segment 10> - Copyright © 2003 Oregon Nikkei Endowment and Densho. All Rights Reserved.