Family Legends

Today I am going to take a break from writing the silly and inane posts of the past month and post a bit of family history.

The following are tiny relics of my grandparents and great aunt's travels from America to Japan before World War II. 

These postcards are from the ocean liner, Tenyo Maru.  From what I can tell from old photographs, my family set sail on this ship from San Francisco to Osaka.

Most of these relics were lost the day after the bombing of Pearl Harbor. According to family lore, when news reached my grandmother that the FBI was rounding up members of the Japanese community for questioning, she burned every photograph of her youth in Japan. 

Before my great aunt passed away she gave me an old book of photographs and an old cigar box filled with an odd assortment of papers. Included were these three cards. One photograph shows Obachan, my aunt, her husband, Grandma and Grandpa, all dressed in elegant coats wearing beautiful hats standing in front of the ships life preserver.