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LG: So shifting a little bit just based off of time, when did you first hear about Shofuso?

TM: I think I first heard about Shofuso when they were organizing the Friends of the Japanese House and Garden. And I think I might have been president of JACL at that time, Philadelphia JACL, either that or EDC, Eastern District Council governor. So I was plugged in to the Japanese community at that point. So they invited me to come to talk about the start of Friends of the Japanese House and Garden. And I knew a little bit about it, but not a whole lot. One of the things that was happening, and the reason for the Friends group organizing, was the house had been vandalized. And it had been vandalized a few times, it wasn't just once. And since this was a gift from Japan, they really felt that they wanted to preserve it. And I think, during the '80s, there were a lot of Friends groups that started for different houses, historical houses in Fairmont Park, if I'm not mistaken. And so this was a way to, I think, highlight and value and preserve the house. So I'm not sure exactly when I first visited the house, and I'm fairly certain that I had been here before that group was organized, the Friends of the Japanese House and Garden was organized.

LG: Do you remember that first visit?

TM: I don't, I don't really. I remember the Friends group and how we washed down all the veranda and we washed it down with milk. I don't know if it's still done that way, but we'd get on our hands and knees and scrub it and we put a coating of milk on it, I guess it was to protect it, or for the sheen, and just ways to care for it. And I think the pond was really overgrown with weeds and invasive carp. So... and you probably still have that problem here. But that was a project that was being worked on, as well as just sort of maintaining the house and the tourism and what to do to bring in money and to make it a place that people would visit.

LG: Who were the people that would visit?

TM: Well, I think the people who I worked with, I think it was Joan Prudett, I don't know if that was her first name. She was the organizer, and I'm not sure if she was from the Art Museum. But then Mary Watanabe, and Mary came very early, because she was she was very interested in Japanese art, she had a lot of art in her home. And she was, to me, a very well-educated woman, she seemed a very elegant person. Plus, I knew of her through JACL as pretty much an activist that JACL often talked about, how they got Judge William Marutani elected. And it was really through getting all of the members of the Philadelphia chapter organized for his campaign, and they worked hard on getting, you know, like canvassing and getting signs out, et cetera, et cetera. And they always talked about how -- and I think Mary was one of the main pillars of that. But they always talked about, well, the word evangelist, because Judge William Marutani had a name that sounded Italian. And he had, I think he was first place on the ballot, and so those were all advantages, and he was elected. So that was that was a feather in the chapter's cap. And forget exactly... so Mary was definitely a person that I think she became president of this group. And she was a go-getter, she knew what to do. There were a few Nisei that were that way, that were very, very much activists. I'm trying to think of why it was so, but I think these Nisei knew that if anything was going to be done, it had to be done. My generation, Sansei and beyond, were becoming assimilated. But Nisei, their time in America, they were not assimilating, they couldn't assimilate, even though they were citizens. I mean, they were incarcerated, for heaven sakes. So they knew that if anyone had to stand up, it had to be them. They had to stand up for their rights. And, you know, just like my mother, they weren't well-educated, many of them had college degrees, which didn't necessarily mean they could get good jobs, but they were well educated.

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