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AI: Well, I wanted to ask you a little bit about the, a big change in your life after a little, sometime after your graduation, was that you and, and your sister Nellie actually moved away from the farm for a while, and went into business with another family in a restaurant. Could you tell a little bit about that?

PB: When we bought the farm, the sixteen-and-a-half acres on Berto Hill, we had a friend in Leavenworth, and I think my parents borrowed money from this family to help finance so we could buy this farm. And they had money, so they thought maybe they would try the restaurant business, that they would furnish the money, and we would furnish the labor, which meant that my older sister and I would wait on tables. That's how we happened to start this restaurant in the basement of the Bush Hotel.

AI: And the, the Bush Hotel, of course, still exists, and that's right down in Seattle's, currently called the Chinatown/International District. And what was the name of your restaurant?

PB: Shinpo ken was the name of it. So I only worked there a very short while, but it was very popular when we were working there, because the two new girls from out of town were working as waitresses, and it was really crowded. We had a lot of Orientals come in there, Chinese and Japanese, and that's when I started meeting all these young Japanese from the city. Because we hadn't come in contact with other Japanese so much, other than the ones that we know out in the country that were farmers.

AI: So Seattle and the city life was very new to you.

PB: Yes. I kind of thought that I would never like the city, because every time I'd come to town, I'd get sick. The gas fumes from the car exhaust... you know, being out in the country all the time, the fresh air and then coming into the country -- into the city, with the gas fumes, I'd always get sick. And I'd get home and I'd be so carsick that I would vomit. Just as soon as I got home, I'd step off of the, out of the car, or get off of the bus, and I would vomit. And I would be so sick that I'd swear I'd never go to town again. But actually working in town, living in town, I got used to it. We lived in the Welcome Hotel at the time, which was next door. But I only worked a short time there, and I think I think it was prob-, I don't really know why I left there, but might be that I was underage and wasn't allowed to work.

AI: Well, and that was maybe around 1924 or so, you might have been maybe about fifteen or so?

PB: Uh-huh.

AI: And so, so you were still a minor.

PB: Yes.

AI: Well, and then as you said, that was also, you and Nellie were new girls in town, and at that time, the Japanese American community, even in Seattle, was not all that big.

PB: No. Well, we were new, so I had met these people, and, of course, then I got interested in dancing. Of course, the fellows wanted to take me to a dance, and Mother was against that. But she would let me go with one certain fellow that she liked. He was from what they called a elite group of Japanese.

AI: Well, so when you say "elite group," what, what made them elite?

PB: Well, they were the ones that had cars, and they had money, and was in business. That was C.T. Takahashi, his group. His employees or partners or whatever they were. Well, there was one Chinese fellow in the group, and there were three Japanese fellows. And they had a insignia, they belonged to a kind of a club all their own. And that was the only fellow my mother approved of. She didn't, she didn't like any of the other fellows. They used to -- after I went home, of course, then they came out to the farm. Lot of the fellows came out to the farm, and, well, the first fellow that I started to go with was a boy from South Park. And he was going to the University of Washington at the time, and he came out to see me, and my mother bawled him out and said, "Well, if you're going to University of Washington, you have no business going out looking, visiting girls." And he told her, "Don't worry, Mama, I'm going to graduate with honors," and he did. He graduated with honors from the University of Washington and went on to MIT and graduated there. I think he's still living, and last... well, I don't know now. Last I heard, he was living in California. He, he's probably gone now, because he would be older than me, I think.

<End Segment 10> - Copyright © 2004 Densho. All Rights Reserved.