(From a few photos, a few letters, and a few stories told over lunch with my mom and aunt, I have pieced together the story of the Oda boys. If at times my imagination ventures into the realm of fiction, please forgive me.)

Sometime around 1932, Bachan went to the funeral of a family friend in Suisun with a big plate of homemade sushi and came home with three boys.

Their father had been a friend of Bachan’s family in Wakayama, and when he first came to the U.S., he had stayed at “Pine” (the Takahashi home on Pine Street in San Francisco) en route to a job in California’s Delta. He had married late like many Issei, but his wife had died some time ago and so it was just Oda-san and the three boys: Henry, Eddie, and Harry.

Now Oda-san was gone. At the funeral, Bachan worried about the boys, huddled together alone. The middle one, Eddie, had an angelic innocence to him and looked to be about the same age as her own son Shig, who was eleven. The other two — Henry, two years older, and Harry, two years younger than Eddie, like bookends — bore a strong family resemblance to each other. They had mobile faces that looked as if the possessor could go either way — be a comedian or a pugnacious rabble-rouser. She noted the “friend of the family” who took charge of collecting the koden, funeral money, given by the guests. Times were hard, but people gave what they could, knowing the favor would be returned when they were the ones in need.

After the service, Bachan talked to some of the other ladies, who told her that the Odas’ “family friend” was not a reliable man. There were no relatives the boys could go to. People in the community were having a hard enough time feeding their own families. The boys would probably end up on the street, or be split up and farmed out to families or employers who needed field hands.

Bachan did not stop to think about her own family: two girls and two boys, ranging in age from nineteen to three, or her own age, which was forty-seven. She did not think about how fragile their own economic situation was, just a year or so out from a bad stretch that had her contemplating walking into the Pacific Ocean with her baby son (who, as it turned out, did not live to see his first birthday). She didn’t stop to count the bedrooms they had in the Victorian flat that they rented from their Greek landlord, who had a good heart. Nor did she think about how their retail business on Grant Avenue was so much better than wholesale — when a retail customer bought something, you had cash in hand — and the store was doing well in its second year of operation.

As soon as she saw that the family friend had disappeared with the koden, she collected the Oda boys and said, “You’re coming home with me.” Still dazed with the loss of their father, they did not protest. They needed an adult to make a decision, and they were relieved.

What her husband, Shigetaro, and her own children (Kiyo, Tomi, Shig, and Edwin) thought of the sudden acquisition of three more members in their family, no one knows. The Oda boys had a place to sleep and three meals a day; they were clothed and sent to school. Kiyo at nineteen was already out of school and helping at the store. Tomi, fourteen, and Shig, eleven, were the closest to the boys in age. Tomi in particular had lived through the family’s hard times during her formative years and had a natural sympathy for children in need. Edwin was just three and accepted his new brothers easily as three more people to play with.

The Oda boys (Eddie, hiding behind Henry, and Harry, front row, center); Bachan is behind Harry, in the dark-collared coat; Jichan, my grandfather is in the front row at the right, hat in hand; Kiyo is at the far right, just behind Jichan; and Edwin is between Harry and Jichan.

 

When we look at old photos from the past, we try to identify the faces in it; but we often don’t notice who is missing. Henry, the eldest Oda boy, is not in this photo of the Takahashis, taken around 1936.

Back row, left to right: Kiyo, Harry, Eddie, Shig, and Tomi. Front row: Edwin, Jichan, and Bachan. Jichan’s brother, Yonezo, and his wife Kimi, are in the front row with their daughter Aki, and at the far right are another daughter, Shizu (back row) and son Kaz (front row).


By 1936, there were only two Oda boys. Henry, the eldest, had a nosebleed one day, and a fever. Friends came to give blood; but a week later, he was dead of some form of acute leukemia.

 

Eddie, circa 1938

Sometime in his late teens, Eddie contracted tuberculosis and had to stay at Weimar, a sanatorium in Placer County. He eventually recovered, and after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, he was interned with the Takahashis, first at Tanforan, and then Topaz. Despite his delicate health, he was assigned to the very dusty job of distributing mattresses.

Harry in Rome, 1944

 

Meanwhile, Harry, the youngest, joined up in 1943 and went on to fight in Europe with the 442nd Regimental Combat Team. He saw action in northern Italy in June of 1944.


Continue to: V-mails to Topaz

 

 

Images © R. A. Sasaki. All rights reserved.