<Begin Segment 10>

LH: So once you returned to the United States, how was your life growing up in Seattle at the time before the war?

FG: Well, for me it's a little bit difficult. I was, well, about five, six years old and I really didn't know what the outside world was. I think you're pretty well insulated if you live in the middle of the Japanese community. You're pretty well insulated and then they, what they did with their store, they had, the store was on Thirteenth and Stewart -- by the freeway now -- but they moved it down first to Security Market and then down to the Pike Place Market.

LH: Well, Thirteenth and Stewart, that's pretty far removed from what people consider the Japanese community today or even back then. So, I mean, how did they end up having a business all the way out there?

FG: I have a feeling that it had to do with the people that my mother and father worked for at one time. I think what they did was they bought the store from them and how they got there, I don't know. And then, but yeah, it was pretty far, quite far, because it's at least thirteen blocks from First Avenue. [Laughs]

LH: And so they moved the store from Thirteenth and Stewart and then you said where?

FG: Security Market, which is one block north of the Bon Marche on Third Avenue. I think it's that area where, I don't know if Bergman Luggage is still there, but it's north of the Bon. And then from there then a stall opened up at the Pike Place Market, Sanitary Market, which is the Pike Place Market was the Farmer's Market. And then across from it was that which was not, well, there was some produce and things being sold on this other side, but there were also the barbers and the candy shops, and milk shops. Oh, Milwaukee Sausage, different things.

LH: And what year was this that they actually opened up the stall at the Sanitary Market?

FG: I don't remember, but I think it's about 193-, I think it's about '33 or '4, I think.

LH: So right around the time that you were born.

FG: Yes. Uh-huh.

LH: So what do you remember of that store? I mean, that stall at the Sanitary Market? Did you have much reason to go down there?

FG: Oh, well, I think the market babysat me. They were my babysitter and I was about, when I wasn't in school I would have a lot of free time. And what they did was my mother would take me down to this store with her and I must have been about six, seven years old, right. And so but then there were a lot of Japanese storekeepers and stall keepers and so I kind of, they always kept track of me because then they'd say, "Oh, yeah. Well, I just saw her walking. She was going toward Okada-san's place." And oh, and you go ask Okada-san. And Okada-san, "Oh, well I just saw her, she was over at such and such." So they kept a pretty good eye on me. And then we always ate at, there was a lunch counter there that all the Japanese ate so I didn't have... I only had, say about between about eight to twelve, right, that I was playing around. And then I'd have between one to five, and I always kind of wandered around inside the market. I really couldn't get lost and I couldn't get into trouble. I could probably eat too much because everybody would give me as you walk by, a little kid walking around. They give you, the Italian produce people used to give me oranges and grapes and bananas and everything. "Oh, here do you want one?" [Laughs] And they used to give me things and I'd go by the Milwaukee Sausage and I'd get slices of lunch meat, cheese -- [laughs] -- and it was quite a bit of things to do to keep me occupied.

<End Segment 10> - Copyright © 1998 Densho. All Rights Reserved.