<Begin Segment 15>

MA: So then going back to your, so your parents sold the laundry to your husband?

MT: I think he did, but I was never involved in anything financial. He did it all. I mean, I'm not much for wanting to, numbers, remember? [Laughs]

MA: But you basically took over the laundry from your parents.

MT: Yeah, uh-huh, that's basically what we did, I'm sure. And then the hotel was, it was hard. Because --

MA: What years did you run the hotel?

MT: Gee, I don't know the exact year. I really don't. It's a blur.

MA: Like the '50s?

MT: '45... yeah, it had to be.

MA: And what was that hotel like?

MT: You don't want to know. [Laughs]

MA: You described it as a "flophouse," what does that term mean?

MT: [Laughs] Well, that's what Nihonjins ran. They all ran those things, and gee whiz, it was a pretty good... hotel, the next door place is still there, but the hotel itself is gone. This hotel was three floors, it had 130 rooms in it, and sometimes it was full with these people. And you could get a room, just a bed, for fifty cents. Bargain. [Laughs] And then that's the inside rooms. Then on the back side, next to the alley, you got the, it's seventy-five cents, 'cause you got the outside window. Then you could get a room in the front, which had sort of a suite. It's got a front room and a bedroom and a bathroom, and that's a dollar and a half. Oh, golly. [Laughs] But it was just too much. I didn't like that job, but we did it seven days a week. Every day we had to go there and make the beds. Then we got out of that because of the heart attack, and then we went on. But that was good in a way, that the kids knew that we were broke, and they all, most of them went on scholarships to school. They, we just didn't have it. But we could have had it if he had gone to school, you know what I mean, but we didn't have any money then, either.

[Interruption]

MA: So we were talking before about your hotel that you ran with your husband, and I was wondering who the customers were. Who stayed at the hotel?

MT: Lumberjacks and those who worked in the mines, and apple pickers. Oh yes, we always had apple pickers. In the fall they come in and they get a good room, seventy-five cents, and the next morning I go in there and all the quilts are gone. [Laughs]

MA: So they would take stuff from the rooms?

MT: They'd take it so that, yeah, so they could sleep wherever they are when they're picking apples. Every fall that happens. Isn't that something?

MA: And then the, you said the lumberjacks and the other people?

MT: Miners.

MA: Were those all Caucasian?

MT: Yeah.

MA: Men?

MT: Yeah, and... yeah, uh-huh. Just Caucasian.

MA: What was the atmosphere like in the hotel? Was it loud, was it sort of...

MT: Well, those who were just retired fellows, and they sit in the front room, they, they're good, they're good. During the day, they were pretty good, but then when they come in with money in their pocket, then they get noisy, you know. They buy, first thing they do is buy wine and drink it. Below was a tavern.

MA: How many rooms was the hotel?

MT: The hotel?

MA: Yeah, how many rooms?

MT: About 130.

MA: And it seems like you had a combination of people who, did people live there?

MT: Yes.

MA: So people long-term and then short-term.

MT: Yes, yes, correct. Uh-huh, by the month, yeah. We had a couple of Nihonjins that lived there.

MA: Were those Isseis?

MT: Huh? Issei, uh-huh. Well, you might call them that. They used to belong to, you rented the hotel from a Caucasian, but the people ahead of us, Mr. Katayama and his wife.

MA: They owned the hotel before you?

MT: Well, you don't say owned the hotel building, but the business.

MA: What was your job at the hotel?

MT: I was the chambermaid. [Laughs] Honest to goodness chambermaid, and I made beds and chamber as it says. Well, you don't want me to go into detail. [Laughs] But anyway, yeah.

MA: Were you, were you the only one that did that?

MT: I and -- if I had a helper, like sometimes my mother would come, but she had another hotel. But, you know, it was nice to have somebody on the other side of the bed, then it's faster. Yeah, we had the trick of the trades.

MA: And then, I guess, what was a typical day like for you at the hotel for you and your husband?

MT: Yeah, we'd start nine o'clock or whatever, when people get out. Yeah, and just start making beds, going room to room, and then go up the stairs room to room. It used to be three floors, yeah, three floors. I don't know, I never dreamed I'd be doing that kind of job. And a hakujin fellow said to my husband, he says, "You can do better than that." He was an agent for the building, but he said to him, "You could do better than that," and he did. I'm real proud of him. I think about it now, and he did good, real good. Fifty-two, he had to go back to school, that's pretty early. I mean, you know...

MA: He was fifty-two years old?

MT: Uh-huh, went back to school. They called it Kinman Business University, and he did real well, to a point where the hakujin lady wanted him to have the job instead of the woman. That's good.

MA: Was your, just another question about your hotel, where was it located? Was it sort of downtown area?

MT: Yes, yes. It was the next block after the Chinese block.

MA: What was in the Chinese block, was it restaurants?

MT: Remember? There was Clem Hotel, that's a block, Clem Hotel way over to Washington. Then from Washington, that next block was where the hotel was. Lots of hotels.

MA: Mostly run by Japanese?

MT: Japanese. Yeah, it's amazing. But her husband's family ran a meshiya, too, isn't it?

MA: What was that? What did they run?

MT: Meshiya, which is an eating place, or a restaurant or something, but that's the, yeah. But I have a, quite a vivid memory of where everything was. When I, in our day, and I realize maybe what you, the map you showed me is before that, but it still doesn't sound right. [Laughs] Sorry.

<End Segment 15> - Copyright © 2006 Densho. All Rights Reserved.