How the Admiral’s Mother Came to Tennessee (12:24)

Fumiko Ohno Harris

Fumiko Ohno was the eldest of four sisters whose parents died shortly after the end of World War II. Their prospects were bleak. Their aunt, however, had a plan. Fumiko should get a job at Yokosuka Naval Base and marry an American. And then help her sisters do the same. That’s what she did. And after marrying Harry B. Harris Sr., a machinist mate in the U.S. Navy, Fumiko even attended a brides’ school to learn how to be an American housewife. Her great surprise, however, was their move to rural Tennessee where, as her son Admiral Harry Harris Jr. tells it, “You had to either grow your food, kill your food or catch your food.”