<Begin Segment 21>

KB: So you were married in '58 and you had children. Can you tell me about your children?

SO: I had children, Serena, the oldest one was born in '59. And I think the other one was 1960, that's Lynn. We were in Anchorage, so she's an Anchorage, Alaskan baby. Nobody knows that. Yeah, and then Teal was born before Lynn. Teal was born in '60, and Lynn was born in Alaska in '61, I believe. And when we came back in 1965, I had Sherie, she's the youngest.

KB: And you liked the name Lynn.

SO: Yeah, three of 'em.

KB: You have Teal Lyn, Lynn Denise, and Sherie Lynne, and "Lynn" is spelled different each time. Is there any significance to that?

SO: No, I just thought I would use Lynn, but different spelling.

KB: And when you were in Alaska, you said that you came back. Why did you come back?

SO: Because Teal got real sick up there, I think she was allergic to Alaskan dust or volcanic dust or whatever. She almost passed away. She was unconscious for about three days. And at that time, Anchorage only had one pediatrician, and they only had about half a dozen doctors. So we decided it would be safer to be back in Portland.

KB: So tell me a little bit about your family life. What did you guys do? Did you do trips?

SO: Our trips, vacation was to the beach, usually. It was real hard for me to get away from the pharmacy when we started up.

KB: Working long hours?

SO: Yeah, long hours.

KB: What have you shared with your family about the wartime experience at Minidoka and the assembly center?

SO: Really I haven't talked about it until this year. They wanted to quiz me for my, all my history or whatever, and they did get it out of me, because you have a copy there.

KB: Did there, was there a reason that now, that they were asking the questions more than before?

SO: Yeah, they wanted to make sure they had a record of it.

KB: And were they the ones that interviewed you, your daughters?

SO: Yeah, three of them. Or four of them.

KB: They all did?

SO: Yeah.

KB: Did that bring up a lot of different memories for you?

SO: Yes.

KB: How did your wartime experience affect your sense of being Japanese American?

SO: Well, I was proud about it, because of the 442nd. They had a good record.

KB: How do you think that wartime experience affected your parents?

SO: I think it affected them with... they were getting older now.

KB: And they never talked about it after it was over?

SO: They never... yeah. And I haven't talked about it either until they asked me all these questions.

KB: Did it change you, the experience?

SO: I don't think it changed me. Probably bothered me inside.

KB: But it didn't, you don't feel like it made you a different person or made you look at life differently?

SO: Yeah, that anything can happen to you. You don't know the future, that's for sure.

KB: What do you think other people can learn from the experience that the Japanese Americans went through during World War II?

SO: Well, that it shouldn't happen again. It almost did in the... incident, you know.

KB: 9/11.

<End Segment 21> - Copyright © 2014 Oregon Nikkei Endowment and Densho. All Rights Reserved.