[Correct spelling of certain names, words and terms used in this interview have not been verified.]
<Begin Segment 5>
HH: When you came to Philadelphia, although you knew Esther Rhodes, because she was your link at least for permits to go to Penn central. Did you have other kinds of connections in Philadelphia?
GI: Well...
HH: I'm thinking of resources that you might have, that's what I'm thinking of. What kind of resources did you have in Philadelphia?
GI: Actually, when we came to Philadelphia we had no resources except for a few bucks of savings, and we were totally dependent on the Friends. And Esther Rhodes played another role indirectly in that when she was running the Evergreen hostel in Pasadena, she had a young lady, a summer student from Earlham College, help her with people that were settling back, resettling back in California. Her name was Alice Roberts, nickname was Robin Roberts, who came from a family in New Jersey. Her father owned a farm right here in Marlton, New Jersey, his name was Byron T. Roberts. And she persuaded her father to employ somebody out of the concentration camp to come work for him. And that's how we were able to get my father, mother and my two youngest brothers to come out to New Jersey in fall of 1945.
HH: You mentioned earlier that you had one brother in Markham, New Jersey. Is that one brother still somehow connected with a farm?
GI: No. That's Mitsuo. He spent a little time during the summer before school started. In fact, he worked with a Tak Moriuchi at Martin's farm, that was a summer of '44 before he enrolled at Friends Central.
HH: How and when did you meet your wife?
GI: Well, actually, my wife was in the same camp as I, Poston, in fact in the same block, and she came out about the same time came to attend Westtown school. But she came out with a schoolteacher, a core study schoolteacher who taught at Poston II high school, her name was Joanne Smith. And Joanne persuaded my wife-to-be, and a couple of other young ladies, to resettle in the Philadelphia area. And at that time, I had no idea she would become my wife, but I don't know, fate brought us together and we were married in 1953.
<End Segment 5> - Copyright © 1994 JACL Philadelphia. All Rights Reserved.