How was your mother and father meet?
My mother and father met.
My mother was from a place called Warmington, North Carolina.
She was teaching school there.
She graduated from Slater College and Institute in North Carolina, and she was teaching school
there.
Well, this summer, I don't know what year it was, she came to Philadelphia to see her
sister.
That was my aunt.
And my aunt and her husband, they had a lunchroom up on Lehigh Avenue up there.
And the old athletics ballpark was on Lehigh Avenue at that time.
And they said a lot of the ball places to come in my uncle's restaurant to eat.
His name was Holland, William E. Holland.
He had a restaurant that was around 17th to 18th in Lehigh Avenue at that time.
And he used to tell us a lot about this, about the old time ballpark players and all.
And anyway, my mother came to visit her sister.
And she, during the visit, my mother's sister was, she had some friends in Harrisburg or
somewhere out there.
And she took my mother, her sister with her, and then she met my father.
Harrisburg?
Yeah.
And my father was working out there.
My father was, what do you call, a housekeeper or something to do with the house he, he
was in charge of the house.
Well anyway, my aunt introduced my mother to him, and I don't know, a year or so later
they, see how they fell in love and got married.
And then he came to Philadelphia.
And when he came to Philadelphia, he applied for a job.
And the only thing he knew was about service, working in service, what do you call it, butler.
That's what he was.
A butler.
He was a butler.
And he worked for the people that owned, there used to be a paper in Philadelphia called
the Philadelphia Bulletin.
And the McLean family owned that building.
And my father worked for him, he was there butler.
And that's that.
But uh...
And what was your father's name?
His name?
Mm-hmm.
My father's name was K.U.S.H.I.
K.U.S.I.
K.U.S.H.I. K.U.S.H.I. Amakawa.
And he changed his name to Frank Amakawa.
So we just used the first part of our last name, our last name is really Amakawa, okay?
And uh...
As I said, my father got this job with McLean's.
And I think that's when he got sick.
I mean he was...
He went left and went out to Chicago and got sick.
And after that my mother didn't hear anymore from him, she'd write to him and then the
letters started coming back.
Well when did this happen?
No, that would have been around...
My sister was born in 1922, it had to be in 1922.
Your father got sick and went to Chicago?
Yeah.
Because my sister was just a baby.
My sister didn't know her father because she was the baby, you know, she was only a few
months old or so.
But uh...
He died or something disappeared or something happened to him in Chicago and my mother never
had it anymore.
But years later my mother had to declare him legally dead.
