Oral History Program Masako Ryujin Interviewed by Linda Sillitoe 23 March 2005 Oral History Program Weber State University Stewart Library Ogden, Utah Masako Ryujin Interviewed by Linda Sillitoe 23 March 2005 Copyright © 2024 by Weber State University, Stewart Library Mission Statement The Oral History Program of the Stewart Library was created to preserve the institutional history of Weber State University and the Davis, Ogden and Weber County communities. By conducting carefully researched, recorded, and transcribed interviews, the Oral History Program creates archival oral histories intended for the widest possible use. Interviews are conducted with the goal of eliciting from each participant a full and accurate account of events. The interviews are transcribed, edited for accuracy and clarity, and reviewed by the interviewees (as available), who are encouraged to augment or correct their spoken words. The reviewed and corrected transcripts are indexed, printed, and bound with photographs and illustrative materials as available. Archival copies are placed in Special Collections. The Stewart Library also houses the original recording so researchers can gain a sense of the interviewee's voice and intonations. Project Description The Weber and Davis County Community Oral History Collection includes interviews conducted by Weber State University faculty, staff and students, and other members of the community. The interviews cover various topics including city government, diversity, personal everyday life experiences and other recollections regarding the history of the Weber and Davis County areas. ____________________________________ Oral history is a method of collecting historical information through recorded interviews between a narrator with firsthand knowledge of historically significant events and a well-informed interviewer, with the goal of preserving substantive additions to the historical record. Because it is primary material, oral history is not intended to present the final, verified, or complete narrative of events. It is a spoken account. It reflects personal opinion offered by the interviewee in response to questioning, and as such it is partisan, deeply involved, and irreplaceable. ____________________________________ Rights Management Special Collections All literary rights in the manuscript, including the right to publish, are reserved to the Stewart Library of Weber State University. No part of the manuscript may be published without the written permission of the University Librarian. Requests for permission to publish should be addressed to the Administration Office, Stewart Library, Weber State University, Ogden, Utah, 84408. The request should include identification of the specific item and identification of the user. It is recommended that this oral history be cited as follows: Masako Ryujin, an oral history by Linda Sillitoe, 23 March 2005, WSU Stewart Library Oral History Program, Special Collections and University Archives, Stewart Library, Weber State University, Ogden, UT. iii Abstract: This is an oral history interview with Masako Ryujin. It was conducted by Linda Sillitoe on March 23, 2005 in the home of Jodee Hoellein. The interview concerns her life growing up in Weber County as a Japanese-American during World War II. LS: Would you tell us about your early life? MR: I was born in Kanesville in 1922. My father, Takejero Fujinami, and my mother, Ino Fujinami, were born in Japan. We lived in Roy when I was really young. My father would go from Roy into town. Then later when there weren’t horses like that, we had those Fords that were square with just a canvas roof. We would go to Japanese school in Sunset, and the teachers would tell us stories. I really liked all those stories. We rode the Bamberger train to Japanese School. There were a lot of Japanese women who were educated then. My mother was educated and my father was not so much. I had a sister and a brother, and I was the oldest. My mother died when my brother was born. He was born at the Dee Hospital but the doctors didn’t know very much then, and she lost a lot of blood and died. A lot of ladies died in childbirth then, even Caucasians. I don’t remember my mother very much. I remember my father and the farm in Roy. It was at about 5600 South where there used to be a T in the road, going to Kanesville and Hooper and Ogden, or the other way to Syracuse. There was a nursing home out there, too, or a poorhouse. We would see the people walking down the road when we went to buy candy. They didn’t look very good, but if we wanted to buy candy, we had 1 to pass that poorhouse. LS: I have read about the poorhouse in other oral history interviews. It sounds as if many of the people there were suffering from mental problems. MR: That’s what I think, too. On our farm my father raised a lot of things, and he would bring produce to the Utah Cannery. The Utah Cannery had the best pork and beans, and they had tomato paste. You could smell it for a long way, and it smelled good. We had dairy cows on our farm, Holsteins. My father hired a guy to milk the cows and work on the farm. People came and bought milk. You would let the cream rise and then sell the milk for 15 cents. That was a good price! We would keep the cream and churn it into butter. The farm had tomatoes, watermelons, and dates, and my father would hire farm workers. We had chickens too. I had to gather the eggs every day. I would stand there waiting for a chicken to lay an egg, and then reach under and grab it. It was still warm. JH: Tell her about the bull chasing you. MR: My father had a prize-winning bull, and it was dangerous. It was a stud bull, all white with no black spots. People would come over to borrow the bull. I would have to go around the bull to get home. One day he chased me, and I ran inside the house and looked outside the window. The bull was there—right outside the glass. He had his head down, pawing the ground, and he had a mist—not just air, but a mist coming out of his nostrils. We had a big barn with haystacks all over the barn. I would climb in the haystacks. One day I was so mad at that bull that I picked up a pitchfork and poked him on the head. His head was so hard that nothing happened—no blood 2 or anything. He had a ring in his nose. One day my father wanted to get to town, so he tried to pull the bull in to get water or something. The bull didn’t want to do it, so he charged my father. He had no hands, but his head was big and hard. He pressed his head down on my father’s chest and killed him. My father died in 1930. I was eight or nine then. LS: So is that when you moved into Ogden? MR: That’s when we came to Ogden. After my father died, in the 1930s, I lived with my relatives, Jisaku Sakurada and Toki Sakurada, above the fish market. My stepfather bought that building. They became my second father and mother. We had a fish market and grocery on 24th Street, right where the Marriott Hotel is now. It went from 24th Street back to the alley. I remember looking out the window at the men tying up their horses at a post. The men would come into town to do their errands and tie up their horses with a bag over their heads so they could eat hay. Then, if you have horses, you have to have a street cleaner. I would watch this man in a clean white overall with a big moustache and a hat on. He would come along with his push broom two or three times a day. I was eight or nine years old then. LS: Where would you go to school then? MR: I went to Grant Elementary School, but we would go to Japanese school then, too. It was on Lincoln, on the east side of the street. Everything was taught in Japanese, and we had a Japanese Church on 24th and Lincoln. We would wear nice dresses to the Japanese school on Sunday. My aunt would make my dresses with one pocket on one side. I guess that’s the only way she knew to 3 make them. LS: So you lived right downtown. MR: Yes, above the fish market. Then there was something across the street that has changed now, and the fish market was next door. Then there was a taxicab place and a welding metal business with an office in front. I remember the Bamberger Station too. It was a nice place, warm inside. We rode the Bamberger all over. They had trolleys then too, in the center of the street. LS: What kinds of things did you and the other children do? MR: My brother and sister and I would go to buy candy or bread. My brother was small, so we would put him in the wagon, and I would pull him and my sister would push. On Grant Avenue between 24th and 25th Streets, there was a Chinese building with gambling in it. In the summer those Chinese men would be outside resting. Someone told me they would take little girls and take out their livers to sell. So when we got close to that building, we would cross the street, go to 25th Street, and then back to Grant, and then back around. We went to the Wonder Bread store every third day. Do you remember that horse on the roof? JH: Yes, I remember that. MR: Reid Brothers had a horse on the roof, and they sold harnesses, suitcases, and other leather goods. In Japan, you look out the window and see Mount Fuji, it’s always there. For me, it was look out the window and see that horse. It was a big horse and you could see it from everywhere. JH: I think that horse was probably about life-size. I remember seeing that. LS: Ogden sounds like a great place to grow up in those days. 4 MR: Washington Boulevard and 25th Street was a great city. They were the busiest streets. I loved it. Every night I would go out and watch everybody out there, just living their life out. I liked just to watch the street. In those days you would hear about the Japanese store, or the Jew store, or the Greek store. Everybody talked that way then. They didn’t identify the person, just the nationality. There used to be a Safeway and an O.P. Skagg on 24th Street. Then on the other side of Grant, we had the Japanese Church that was really the community center. LS: You would have been very young during the Depression. Do you remember much about those years? MR: During the Depression in the 1930s a lot of Japanese boys worked for the WPA or the CCC building roads and lots of things. There were Japanese farms, too, truck farms with tomatoes, dates, and lots of crops. LS: Ogden was a big railroad center then, too. Did you like to watch the trains or go down to the depot? MR: Oh yes, the trains were very busy. Where the railroad was built, Frances Smith told me there were lots of Oriental bones there. This lady told me that they would bring in lots of Orientals to build the railroad, and when payday came they would dynamite them. Then they would bring in another group, and then dynamite them on payday, too. I said, “Well, those bones are Oriental but they are Chinese bones. A lot of Chinese came in to build the railroads.” LS: What kinds of things did you do for fun? Were there social activities? MR: There would be a Japanese Festival then. Joseph Barker would help out the Japanese farmers. He would loan them money to get their crops in, and then 5 they would pay it back. We would ride the Bamberger to Salt Lake sometimes, or we could ride the trolleys to a friend’s house for 10 cents or 15 cents. I knew ladies who would ride the Bamberger to Salt Lake just for lunch, and then they would come back. Linda Oda’s family came from California. They lived next door and upstairs over the grocery business. Before the Oda’s came, there was prostitution in that place. A beautiful woman ran it, and she was called the Queen of 25th Street. The police later cleaned all that up, and she had to move to Evanston. There were a lot of beer joints, restaurants, and clothing stores. We used to roller skate in the Berthana. I can remember riding to SaltAir in the opensided train and riding the roller coaster. That roller coaster was big and steep! You would go up really slowly to the top, and then down! We lived in Ogden all those years, and it was a pretty good place. LS: Where did you go to school after Grant Elementary? MR: I went to Grant Elementary School, and then I went to Japan for the rest of my schooling. It was hard! They have the same classes over there but the accent was different. At first I couldn’t understand anything! And it was fast! If you don’t understand something, too bad. We learned Tojo history in Japan. I lived with my aunt, and she was well-educated, so she could help me. A lot of the emphasis was on mathematics, and they always gave us story problems because they make you think better. The older generation would use an abacus and they could do 6 mathematics very fast, in their heads. In Japan the schools were strict, and it’s the same way now. In America they teach the subject thoroughly until everyone learns it. In Japan there were advanced courses, everything goes really fast. You can’t be sick, you have to go every day except for half a day on Saturdays. A lot of parents sent their children there for schooling so they could learn Japanese better and then bring that back. Now a lot of Japanese people are not modest. But in my time, they were quiet and reserved. They knew how to behave. Now you can be in Japan on an elevator, and people will push ahead of you. In those days they didn’t push in. They had manners and customs. Now if I visited Japan I wouldn’t want to go to Tokyo. I would like to go to the southern part where the scenery is beautiful. The language is different there. One time we were going swimming on a beach, and a lady stopped me. I tried and tried but I couldn’t understand her. I did know that she had to go on a ferry to get where she was going. I kept trying to tell her, but I couldn’t make her understand. Then they knew that war was coming so they sent me back here when I was about nineteen years old. They said, “Well, the war is coming, so you better go home and help your parents.” My mother’s family was rich; my father’s family was not so much. LS: What was it like for you during World War II? MR: When World War II came they took my stepfather away. LS: To an internment camp? Why did they take him? MR: Just him, not the family. He was a community leader and a leader in the church. A man who ran a grocery store near us was also taken. My father and Mr. 7 Takahashi had been involved in the Russian wars. They were taken for political reasons. They took them to Salt Lake first and then to Santa Fe, New Mexico. That was about 1942. LS: Did you see him during that time? MR: Yes, I went to Santa Fe to see him. It was quite a while before anyone could visit. I went to the Union Station to get on a train. On the train there were no seats. The Army soldiers were standing, and just the older people had seats. I sat on my suitcase all the way. The train went to Denver first and then to Santa Fe. The camp there was close to the mountains, and they had fixed it up. It wasn’t too bad. He was there quite a while before I got to see him. They told me not to call a taxi when I got off the train because I could walk down to the hotel. But when I got off, I couldn’t see any hotel. So I got a cab, and it took me a couple of blocks, and there was the hotel. They had one Chinese restaurant there—not very much Oriental food. I saw a lot of Indians, though. Some of them had their hair cut in mohawks and they wore moccasins. There was an Indian school there. I went inside an adobe house. I spent about five days in Santa Fe and then I took the train back home. The trains were always full in those days. In those days, at Union Station, when you went down to the trains, you would go down some steps to an underground depot, and then up some steps to the train. They would have signs and numbers so you could find the train you wanted to take. LS: Do you have any photographs of that time or your early years? MR: No, I don’t have any photos. When my stepfather died, my brother took all the old 8 photographs and threw them out. I don’t have any photographs of those things now. LS: I read in another oral history interview about a Japanese-American community in Devil’s Slide. They worked in the lime industry there. The interview was with a plumber who put bath houses in their apartment complex. He said that during the war “the feds” came through and took them all away. Do you know about this? MR: No, I don’t know about those people, but I could believe it. You know, they worry about spies. LS: It just seems so strange that they would take the whole community. Maybe it was because of the lime and whatever war materials the lime would be used for. MR: Well, those things could happen. LS: I guess it doesn’t sound so strange to you? MR: No, it doesn’t sound strange to me because there were a lot of people that were taken, so I just don’t know. It wasn’t a bad idea, it was good I suppose. They put all the people in a camp and they could work there. LS: I don’t know who “the feds” were supposed to be—the FBI? MR: Yes, that was the FBI. When they came and took my father, they came in and we had to open the safe and everything. We had about five pieces of gold in that safe. They took it. They never gave us any money. After my stepfather was taken away, my stepmother and I worked in the grocery and fish market. I had to learn to drive a car! My stepmother didn’t drive so I had to learn. I worked there with her in the fish market until my (step)mother died. We carried mostly fish and Japanese canned goods. We had kelp, and I 9 guess that’s good for thyroid problems because people would come in for that. Sometimes northern Europeans would come to the store to get hard dry fish. They said they would soak it in milk and cook it that way. Mrs. Ruth Eccles came to our store to buy crabs and shrimp in the early 1930s. We always had to clean the crabs for her. We had a boarding house above the store and storage in the basement. Our quarters were above the store, too. During World War II there were a lot of restaurants, and the Wonder Bread store, and a candy store, and the Lyceum Theater, and the Paramount Theater. LS: Do you remember the Italian and German prisoners of war that had a camp out where the Defense Depot of Ogden is now? MR: Yes, there were a lot of German and Italian prisoners of war here. The Japanese prisoners of war were in Salt Lake. I remember seeing the German POWs and the Italians. They would go out to work in all the businesses, then go back to camp at night. All the companies around needed help because everyone was in the army. Some of those prisoners of war went back home at the end of the war, and then they came back here and started working and married Americans. If you were going to be a prisoner of war, America was a better place. In Japan and those other countries, you see pictures of the prisoners of war and their bones are sticking out, they are so thin. Well, there wasn’t enough to eat in those countries for anyone. Here, you always had something to eat. LS: What was Ogden like during the war? MR: There were a lot of soldiers around Ogden then. The Army soldiers would come and order, and then they wouldn’t have time to wait so they would just leave! The 10 soldiers were just looking for fun, and they didn’t know if they would live or die. They would tell us not to date soldiers, but I was too busy working anyway. My husband, Roy, was working on a cantaloupe farm then in California, and the Caucasian kids in that area would shoot over their heads. In those days there were a lot of people who didn’t like the Japanese. They called us Japs. So everyone had their share. But those days are really gone now. Now people are more understanding. It doesn’t matter to me what nationality, if they work hard and they’re nice people it doesn’t matter if they’re high class or no class. That’s the way I look at it. But anyway, in my father’s time, there wasn’t that understanding. War is an ugly thing. You don’t want a war. I do feel sorry for the kids that have to go (to the current war in Iraq). Really during the war, those were rough times. Also during the war some bad people came into Ogden, even Japanese. People that didn’t like to work, they liked to gamble, gamble, gamble. So I have seen all kinds. One lady who came in here, this fellow was a pimp, I think. She had a business, and he tried to open the cash register, and she had a pistol and she shot his legs. There were a lot of stories like that. His sister had to raise his kids. His sister was a very nice girl. But there were just a lot of people who liked fast money. LS: When did you get married? MR: I got married in 1945. My husband Roy, and Tom and George all started the Star Noodle business. They bought the old Little Theater and had the sloping floor fixed and put in a kitchen. George came to the United States after he graduated from school, and so he could buy property. They didn’t have any trouble buying 11 property. So after that, my mother and I would cook in the restaurant. Cook, cook, cook. That’s all we did. I liked the jukeboxes, too. You would put in a quarter, and it would play different songs. Now my younger sister-in-law has the restaurant. My family was all in the restaurant business. Then my husband Roy went to work for the Utah Cannery, and then the Wonder Bread bakery. We lived in Ogden and raised a family, and made sure our children were educated. LS: How were things after the war? MR: After the war everybody had money. Reid Brothers was on 36th Street and Kiesel, and Costco. I liked to shop at Arden’s, that was my favorite store. Then there was Castleton’s, and Samuel’s—that turned into Auerbach’s—and Van Nuys (that was the most expensive store.) And the Emporium and JC Penney’s were good too. LS: What kind of changes do you see in Ogden now? MR: Now they are putting in a new business out by the Hinckley Airport. That’s good to get more business in so that people can have jobs and maybe Ogden will come alive again. Maybe not on Washington Boulevard, but somewhere. Everything is different now with people, too. Now when you go to Japan, you see movies or singers and you realize they are not pure Japanese–they are a mixture. Or you see Filipinos singing Japanese songs, or Japanese people singing Elvis Presley. LS: These are really wonderful stories. MR: I tell you these stories, but now what I have to face now, that’s something else. Roy is getting old and he can’t travel alone. He has no more brothers and sisters 12 in Japan now. My friends are getting old, and they are sick or losing their heads. If you ask them about these things, they won’t remember. I still have one friend who is all right. You should talk to some of the Caucasian people around here, too. I would suggest LaMond Dolman—his wife. I think her name is Lavina, something like that. She lives in Washington Terrace, and she could tell you a lot. 13