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JT: Well, you know, do you remember, I'm going back to your father's store and Mr. Kako's store, did you ever go there? Was it a store or was it a warehouse? What was it?

KT: Oh, it was, it was mostly a food wholesaler.

JT: Distributor, okay. And did they sell to other stores in the area, or how did that work?

KT: They had this shop in San Francisco. 323 Clay Street. And so they would commute.

JT: Oh, so they worked in San Francisco.

KT: Yeah.

MT: Actually, the company is still existing.

JT: What's it called?

MT Nippon Company with Tom.

JT: Okay, wow.

KT: It's now one of their friends' son, Tom Ito, he took over the company.

JT: Took it over. Oh my gosh. That's a very interesting part of Japanese American history in the Bay Area, those kind of businesses. Did you ever work, or help him at all at work? See, I'm thinking it was the kind where you delivered things to local stores, but they were the distributors, so they didn't do that kind of thing. Your father and Mr. Kako were more the business managers.

KT: They had contacts with the Japanese trucking company, and so they would contact them and have them delivered to the...

JT: Sure, and they all helped each other, worked. That's kind of amazing that in those days they did that, but the Japanese, your father's generation, were hardworking people.

KT: Yeah.

JT: Do you remember what your mom was doing all those years?

KT: My mother was really, didn't do any work at all. She just ran the house.

JT: Oh, it's so easy to run the house, it's not work. [Laughs] She only did the cooking and cleaning and washing and getting your lunch and things like that. What about your yard, garden? Did your dad do his own garden, do you remember?

KT: I guess he did some of the odd work, but my mother took care of the...

JT: She did that, too. She did that in her spare time. [Laughs]

<End Segment 6> - Copyright © 2021 Densho. All Rights Reserved.