<Begin Segment 16>

LH: So here is your mother basically left alone with two children. How did she handle the situation? What did she do?

FG: She worked very, very hard because she had these two children and then -- oh, backtrack a little bit. Right after the war started, the Sanitary Market was arsoned, it was torched, and so my mother had to clean out the store and then move it and see what could be saved. And we saved some things and we had to leave others, and she reopened another store, a little store, and sold the things that were left. And then she sold that to someone, the store, with the contents and all; and it was called, all along, it was called Liberty Malt Shop, or Malt Store, Malt Shop, and it's still there down in the public market.

LH: So that was originally owned by your parents, Liberty Malts.

FG: It's moved around a little bit, but the store name is still there, and it still isn't terribly large I don't think. But, anyway, that's what my mother had to do all by herself.

LH: So she actually had to basically clean up after the fire.

FG: Right.

LH: And then open up her store.

FG: Right.

LH: When she opened up the store, did she think that she was going to actually have to run the store again or was it just to sell what was left and then close the business?

FG: I think that this happened before the executive order came down, and then as she was cleaning up, and then when the order came down I think that's when she very hurriedly sold it because otherwise it would have been... but she was very good bookkeeper and she knew what was, she knew how to handle numbers and business and things and so she did all right. And she took care of all the insurance on the house, the payments of the house, and so we left a house when we left for camp, not everybody did, but we did so we had a place to come back...

LH: Come back to after the war.

<End Segment 16> - Copyright © 1998 Densho. All Rights Reserved.