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LG: Okay, so I want to talk a little bit about Shofuso. Do you remember the first time you heard about the House?

MR: I've always known about Shofuso. [Laughs] My mother always had something to do with the Japanese American, about another Japanese house, I think, forever. I guess our neighbors, who were they? Watanabe?

LG: Henry Watanabe?

MR: Could be. They were the ones that lived, I forget...

LR: You mean the ones that owned the dry cleaning place?

MR: No, no, they were not... I think...

LR: I met Art [inaudible] from, I'm not sure if he's still around.

LG: So what do you remember from your mother working at the House? Did you go with her on cleaning days or when she was over there?

MR: I guess I went with her, as I say, I remember all these, the stuff around the house from Japan for whatever festival you're doing. I think I went with her on occasion, maybe to help out at a festival to help sell stuff. And Japanese House...

LR: Like summer festivals?

MR: I guess I probably went up there. She wanted me to, or she'd drag me along. [Laughs]

LG: Do you know if you went to that house before the Friends group organized in the 1950s?

MR: The Friends group?

LG: Yeah. So the House came to the park in...

MR: '57.

LG: '57, '58. Do you know if you went to the House as a child?

MR: I don't remember going to the House when I was... maybe. I know she's been on the board there for a long time since it came to Philadelphia, I guess, but I don't remember especially going there. I remember going, when there were festivals, when there were, she needed help with selling stuff and things like that, I think, something she's always involved with. And maybe there were some Friends in the neighborhood who were very, also on the board, so she had contacts with them and went to meet. When she stopped driving, I think she didn't go there very much anymore. I remember driving her up... when I was finally taking care of her, I think I drove her up once. And she sort of looked around, and she just wasn't that interested anymore, because she couldn't go up there and get herself into it. So I think that was the last time we visited. She looked around and everything, but --

LR: She also did the... they also honored her on at least three different occasions. Remember she had her eighty-eighth birthday there?

MR: That's right. Was it the eighty-eighth?

LR: The hundredth.

MR: I remember the hundredth birthday, that's right.

LR: And then they had something when she died.

MR: Yes, she --

LR: When they died, they had a beautiful ceremony for her.

MR: They had, it was a very nice... they had a whole big party for her hundredth. And I think you were singing, weren't you? [Laughs] Someone was singing. I think you and John Demick or something, you had some kind of... we all sat on the veranda.

LR: Yeah, and Taeko Sherman did the... didn't she do a tea ceremony or something?

MR: Yes, possibly, possibly. And Louise enjoyed it a lot, he had a great time, he had a great time, he had a great time. Had pictures of her. I think by then we had a caregiver in the house, but she really enjoyed it, she enjoyed things.

<End Segment 15> - Copyright © 2023 JACL Philadelphia. All Rights Reserved.