<Begin Segment 16>

JA: I've heard this name Kay Neumann.

MH: Yes. He was a fantastic person. He moved into Bellevue just about the time we got back too. And he started the lumberyard in Bellevue, the first lumberyard in Bellevue on the corner of (104th) and Northeast Eighth, right there in the corner is Kay Neumann Investment, they call it now, and he helped all the Japanese so many ways. Like our family, he helped us with clothes and he helped us with food, he found us jobs for us, too, so we all found something to do during the whole year or winter months. So whenever we want a job, he was there for us.

JA: Were there many people like this in Bellevue?

MH: Yes; there was. There was quite a few. And there was my neighbor, that was Zwiefelhofer, they were Germans, they were fantastic people, and they, they were still there when we got back. And they had like cows and pigs and chicken and all the fruit and everything else, so they always were there available for us until eventually they sold the place, but until then they were there for us. And then this Mrs. Ringdall, she was a Norwegian lady, and she was another fantastic person that loved to look over the Japanese people. And she came down our way all the time to check to see if we were all okay, and then, in fact, maybe later I'll tell you, but when I was working in the school district, she hired me right away. She said, "You're a Norwegian, you're hired now," she said, is how she hired me.

JA: Wonderful.

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