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7-Chizu and Ernie

Where did you guys meet?

Ernie:
Well we met actually in discussion group actually. I saw her before that. I saw here coming up a road from in the camp, when I was looking out from my room on the day that we were having this discussion. I was just looking out there, and I saw this girl coming walking up. I saw her humming away and I—walking and I thought "Gee, that's kind of interesting." It turned out that she came to our group. That's where I first met her, and then of course things grew from there because we met off from there.

Chizu:
It's so different from what I remember. I remember that he was part of—he was working on housing. We were in the same meeting room—meeting room with Lafam and we were talking about some of the problems. That's where I met him first. I'm surprised when I hear him say something different.

Was it love at first sight?

Chizu:
No.

Ernie, what did you like about Chizu? Was there some particular thing?

Ernie:
Well, she was a nice person. She was—I would say honest and willing to learn new things. I think that was one of the things that impressed me more. A lot of Nissei at that time were very conservative and didn't want to talk about politics as much.

How did you guys go from being people in the same discussion group together to getting to know each other?

Ernie:
I don't know, we just kept on going as we met often and from then I guess. We met in Social Welfare Committee too, so we knew how we talked about different things and I think from that, we knew how we—at least I knew how she felt about certain things politically. That was the main thing that impressed me I guess.

When did you guys first decide that you wanted to get married?

Ernie:
It just came gradually. I don't know—it came pretty fast, because when I look back at it after we met and we were discussing—we weren't in the camp very long. We left there in about March, I think of 1943. We had to get to know each other in that short period, maybe three or four months there. I don't know how it happened, it just happened. We got to know each other—I guess for one thing we knew that we had to make up our minds. Because for one thing I volunteered about the army and so I guess we felt that if we don't make a decision now, we won't be able to make it because I'll be gone. I guess that's one of the things that hurried us up.

Tell us about your wedding day Chizu.

Chizu:
Well our wedding day was very casual. It was one of those things—we were in Chicago and my mother was not particularly happy that I was getting married. In fact, she didn't know that I was getting married to Ernie because she was not happy that I was going around with him. She thought he was too radical and she felt that he did not have the college education that she thought was important. He had two years of college. She heard from other people—he was thirty year old. He was a bachelor at thirty. She was very dubious. We got married—really we didn't want to get married in camp because my parents were there. So we left and got married in Chicago.

Chizu:
My mother did send a dress. I remember the wedding dress that I had. The wedding dress that I had was a cotton dress that she had made for me, to wear in Chicago. Not a special—nothing special it's something that you would wear everyday. But it was new, I had no money, and so I wore that. I bet he doesn't even remember what I wore, but anyways that's what I wore. It was a pink—it was a white and blue dress. My sister came from Minnesota, so that she would be able to stand up with me. We went to a judge—it was very casual. I know that at some point—my two oldest sisters had beautiful weddings with their wedding gown and all of the contraption. My third sister got married to a guy in the service, so she went out got married like I did with a judge. My fourth—next sister got married to somebody who was in the army. They had none of those very special wedding kinds of things. By that time we were so strapped for funds I got to use that money for something else rather than for a wedding. It was very casual.

Chizu:
I don't even remember where we went to eat. Now I would say well where did we go eat. Then I didn't even think about it. Did we go out to eat someplace?
Ernie:
Gee, I don't remember.
Chizu:
You could see how casual it was. It was basically because we thought he was going to be put into the army. So it was this very quickie things that you make a decision. You didn't want to be separated. A lot of that kind of marriage happened. While we were in—I have friends that got married because they didn't know what was going to happen to them. So then they didn't know where they were going to go to camp or which camp they were going to go to. So, people just got married so you won't be separated. Then the army came along. But it lasted all this time! How long have we've been married now?
Ernie:
Sixty-four years.
Chizu:
Sixty-four, Sixty-four years we've been married sixty-four years. That's a long time. In fact, I can hardly remember back when we were not married!

So you have a big anniversary coming up?

Chizu:
Well sixty-fifth year we are going to have a celebration.