<Begin Segment 25>

BF: How long did this nursing home...?

GH: It ran for about ten years.

BF: Wow. This is right after the war, so there were probably a lot of older Issei coming back...

GH: Yeah, there were.

BF: ...whose kids had gone elsewhere, and they needed a home?

GH: Yeah, but they still had, we had, we had people visiting. They would come and visit, and they would say, "Gosh, I wished I lived here." They found it very uncomfortable living at home, as a kind of fifth wheel...

BF: Oh.

GH: ...and, and not appreciated by their grandkids. Interfering, because they were part of the attention that the parents had to give. And they were using space that the kids could've had. But the parents felt embarrassed to have to send -- you know, we had to overcome that attitude. So, that, that was part of the thing. We had, we had 80 percent. At the beginning, we had 80 percent. We met, we met the people that they wanted to place. And then secondly...

BF: I'm sorry, this was the WRA wanted to place?

GH: Yeah.

BF: Uh-huh.

GH: And they, and then when we had some space with the social service department, we found a Chinese pair, not a pair, but two Chinese. And then a third one came, and so we gave them one room, so they could have somebody to talk with. And then as openings came, we even moved to have one African American in. My parents were willing to do that though they were a little concerned that he's an isolate then, see. And he'd have to have, like Japanese-style noon meal. They served Japanese-style with chopsticks, and rice in a bowl with a relish that was suitable. The groceries were, you know, they just fixed it Japanese-style, or it could be western-style. The evening was western-style, with a plate and knives and forks. But we also had to read the diet prescriptions of some people. And we had to be able to make those changes. But my mother was the manager of the store, nursing home. I helped with government relations and codes and stuff like that. Dad did the maintenance, all the maintenance and shopping. We went to the store and bought day old bakery bread, for example, 'cause morning was toast, so, western-style toast and different kinds of variations of eggs for those who could eat it.

<End Segment 25> - Copyright © 1999 Densho. All Rights Reserved.