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HH: When were you born and what is your present age?

AO: I was born in South Philadelphia at Women's Hospital in 1920. So my present age is seventy-four.

HH: Your parents' names?

AO: My parents, my father was Richard Tokizo Okamoto, who was born in Odawara, Japan. My mother is Toshiko Aoki Okamoto, who was born in Tokyo.

HH: You grew up in Philadelphia or in suburban Philadelphia?

AO: I grew up for the first five years in Philadelphia in an area which is now part of the University of Philadelphia campus for my first five years. At the age of five and a half or so, we moved up to the suburbs of Philadelphia in Abington Township, which is north of Philadelphia, about eighteen miles north of Philadelphia.

HH: How would you describe that community in Abington?

AO: How do I describe that? In what way?

HH: The makeup of the community, the kind of people who live there, white collar...

AO: Well, I think that it is typical of these suburbs in 1925, it was made up of blue collar and white collar people. It was close to a area called Willow Grove Park, and many of the people worked at the Willow Grove Park or supplying materials for Willow Grove Park.

HH: What kind of schools did you attend?

AO: I went to school in the old public school system of the suburbs. So I started in kindergarten and went all the way through and graduated from Abington High School in Abington, Pennsylvania.

HH: How would you describe the economic condition of your family while you were growing up?

AO: Economic conditions? We were, I would say, comfortable. We were not rich, but we were not poor either. Dad worked and had a business in Philadelphia as a silk importer. And for quite a while, he used to travel to New York City every Monday, stayed up in New York City until Friday night and came home on Friday nights and spent the weekends with us in our Willow Grove home, our Abington home.

HH: Do you know how your family decided to settle in Philadelphia?

AO: My family decided to settle in Philadelphia by a very odd quirk. My uncle, and I don't know the reason why, my uncle, my father's brother, came to Philadelphia and started a business. And he had a, I guess you'd call it a curio shop in Philadelphia. And first had it in about Third and Walnut Street, and then up in Columbia Avenue. He called my father over to help him out in his business, so my dad came over about 1918. My mother did not... my mother and dad were already married, but my mother did not come over until late 1919, early 1919. So they came directly to Philadelphia, Mother and Dad.

HH: Your dad came over, if I understood you correctly, around 1918?

AO: Prior, just prior to 1918.

HH: '19 or '20?

AO: Beg your pardon?

HH: And your mother came over around 1920?

AO: 1918 because -- 1919 because I was born in 1920. [Laughs]

<End Segment 2> - Copyright © 1994 JACL Philadelphia. All Rights Reserved.