gotohealth's Blog

Andy joined his three brothers, Fred, Sam & Henry, and likely was smiling as we all celebrated his life in Quincy last Saturday.  Kind of lonesome with only sisters, Kiyo and Irene, left of the six sibblings of the Goto family now alive.

 

As Andy's good friend Harry stated, "You would think he was a saint!" as we listened to all the testimony and accolades during the celebration of his life. For sure, Andy was loved by his wife Beryl; children Mike & Melissa, David & Danielle, Kimi & Ben; grandchildren Mason, Monroe, Damien, Kaia, Khloe, Carson, Cameron and did lead an exemplary life!

 

The story that was missing from the celeberation was how Andy was born and delivered in Bully Creek. Andy's father, Frank, had migrated the family from Renton, WA, to this Eastern Oregon community with five other friend families to start over with life because of the hardships of the depression and discrimination of those of us with Japanese Heritage in 1937. The Owyhee Dam completed in 1932 was providing irrigation for row-crop farming for that arid desert community.

 

Fred was eight, Sam was four and Kiyomi was two, and Mom Masako was pregnant with Andy. Dad Frank had watched the midwife delivery of daughter Kiyomi a couple years earlier in their East Valley Highway home in Renton, Washington.

 

The story is that in Bully Creek, farming community west of Vale, Oregon, the family had moved in to a chicken coop, renovated and added on to by Dad Frank and friends  that 1938 Winter. Tin can lids covered the knot holes. The kitchen didn't even have running water.  One of the daily chores for the children was to take buckets and coffee cans to carry water to their kitchen every day from the farm owner's outdoor pump. 

 

There wasn't enough money for a midwife. So, when the labor pains started for Andy's delivery that April, Dad Frank and his farming partner Tom took out a Japanese magazine that had instructions in Japanese for how to deliver a baby.  The older sibblings were taken to Tom's house up the road. They fired up the wood stove to heat the water and got towels ready. Mom Masako said, "Papa did a good job, and it was pretty easy." 

 

That's how Andy came into this world!  Andy was named after the owner of the farm, Andrew Jensen.