Life in Pierce
Our house burned down once in Pierce, TX. During this time, I learned to bake all kinds of things: bread, cake, biscuits and doughnuts. We missed Japanese food, so I often made taiyaki and manju. I had special tools for making soy sauce and soybean paste, so we made these things with other families. We had to pay a special tax to make soy sauce. Soy, sausage, and azuki beans were available, so whenever we had festivals or other special events, I would make manjus and azuki rice. Kagawa made molds out of tin, so on Saturdays and Sundays we had a good time making cakes and other treats. Watching the yeast rise while I made bread was incredible to me; I'd never used yeast in Japan. I baked bread every day to forget my homeland.
There weren't many Japanese things in America, so what I missed about Japan, I made for myself. I made small futons out of Nagajubon (a kind of underware worn under a kimono) and stuffed them with cotton. I also made Kayas (called ‘mosquito nets' in America) out of white net, so they matched to color of the rooms. I made a Japanese bath. I wanted to build a Japanese garden, but I couldn't find the right rocks and stones in Texas. I asked another Japanese woman living nearby how to make kimonos using a sewing machine. Not only was it fun, it distracted me from my homesickness. Sadly, the person who taught me how to make the kimonos soon moved to Los Angeles.
The next year, we left Pierce and moved to a place closer to Onishi's home. In 1914, World War I started. A few years later, we began seeing cars on the streets. Up until then, horse-drawn carriages had been the main form of transportation. When the war ended, we bought a Ford for four hundred dollars. I learned to drive. Because we lived on a farm, I could practice driving.