Richard Torres and Kathy Namba

Richard Torres and Kathy Namba

Interview transcript

RT: I could see her patience, that she just took everything as it came. An, as a young man, I was very anxious and running around and everything. But as, as I got older, I learned from her, and that’s why I can pass it on to you guys.

KN: She had to have been really patient because there were so many kids.

RT : Five boys, five girls. It was a lot of fun, but it was a madhouse. it just was towards the end of the Depression, she used to tell me a lot of times, she’d say, “Oh Boy” she said, “My mother really had it hard.” And I used to think, your mother, what about you? But she never complained. And I was the eldest of the males. In Hispanic culture that puts you as the head, so I left school at an early age, and I got a job. All through my single life, whatever I earned I gave my mother half of it. So that helped a lot. In the later years, I would go at least every three months to be with her and spend some time with her, and uh…

KN: Whatever time of day you would walk in she’d be sitting at the kitchen table with a cup of coffee.

RT: Well you know I have a picture of her on the table there. So every morning I have coffee with Mom. And I feel her presence still. I always tell you girls, the reason I can love you so much, or my grandchildren, is because I was so loved.

KN: Yeah

RT: And I still feel it.

KN: We feel it too.

RT: Thank you.