<Begin Segment 11>

TI: And how about the business? Did your dad open the business the next day?

FS: Oh, he did open the business, but nobody came in. It was --

TI: So normally people would be bringing in their laundry.

FS: Laundry or coming in to pick up their laundry.

TI: And it was just like...

FS: It was, it was like we'd locked the doors, really. My, my favorite story about this is that, I was telling you about the, the friend of my dad who was kind of his mentor. My dad --

TI: So explain, so who's the mentor again and what was his position?

FS: He ran a, he ran a print shop around the corner, and he was a really very ardent Democrat, and when Roosevelt got in, he was appointed, it was a political appointment, he was made postmaster of Spokane, which made him a very august person in Hillyard. [Laughs] But, but so my dad as a favor would run up there on Monday morning and pick up his shirts to wash and iron, and he would take them back on Wednesday. So on December the 8th, he drove up there to get the shirts and this fellow's, this fellow met him at the back door, and, "Come in." And he spread out, my father's nickname in Hillyard was Kay, and he said, "Kay, look at this picture," and of course there were block headlines about this big, saying, about this, and he said, "What do you think of that?" And my dad says, well, geez, it was a dumb move as far as he was concerned. "Well," he says, "Kay, I'm afraid," he says, "I can't do business with you anymore." Says, "I have a political position I have to be careful of." So my dad came home, he was pretty crestfallen at the time, said, well, his old friend has backed away from him.

TI: Did your dad explain this to you and your mom?

FS: Well, I, when we were in the laundry, we were all there, and he, when he came home, he looked, he said, "Well, geez, Mr. So-and-so said, well, he's not going to do business with us anymore." And that was, it was quite a blow, you know. They had been friends for years.

TI: Yeah, that must have been a...

FS: It was. It was a, it was a blow, yeah.

TI: So that combined with your walk-in business had just, sort of disappeared.

FS: Yeah, for the first, yeah, for, about for a month, their thing was so quiet, you know, we were gonna starve to death, it looked like.

TI: Was there anyone in the community that, that came in those early days to, to...

FS: Oh, sure. There were, there were some old friends and guys who had been done, doing business with him for twenty years, that they came in.

TI: And did they say anything to you or your, your dad about, about the war, about what was going on?

FS: Not that I know of. I don't, I don't remember.

TI: Did you have a sense that there were some, the ones who had been doing business for twenty years were, were, just trusted your dad? I mean, it was sort of like regardless of what happened at Pearl Harbor, they were there to support your dad's business?

FS: At least, at least if they were supporting, at least they were ready to, still ready to do business with him. So yeah, that, I do know that, because after a while, business picked up again.

TI: And so talk about how that, how did it pick up? I mean, how long did it take before people started coming back?

FS: I was, I don't know, maybe a month or so. I don't know, but again, he did this industrial work, and there were, not many outfits would handle those dirty old greasy clothes, and so he was, they needed him.

TI: Well, because they needed him and had to kind of work with him, were there some people who came in and were perhaps rude or, or were not very friendly when they brought their business in?

FS: No, and again, I would be gone most of the day at work, and so I, I don't know. But I don't think anybody really was very overtly hostile. If they came in, they knew him, they knew he was a businessman, and they, I don't think they ever challenged him or anything.

TI: And so eventually the business just went back to normal?

FS: Normal, yeah, and it got busier and busier because the railroad got busier and they hired more people. And so yeah, the business picked up over time.

TI: That's good. And then going back to the, the mentor, so did he ever come back?

FS: Well, yeah, eventually. I know that my dad takes great, he took great glee in this, glee in this thing, and I don't know how long it was. But he came back and he asked, he said, "Kay," he says, "I can't find anybody to do my shirts right. Would you do them?" And my dad says, "Geez, I'm just too busy. I can't take your laundry." Which I'm sure gave my dad a great deal of pleasure. [Laughs]

TI: Because your dad felt that here in, in his, in kind of this tough time, his friend kind of, or this man sort of turned his back on him.

FS: Yes.

TI: And now he was coming back, and... because your dad could have done his shirts.

FS: Oh, certainly. It was only three or four shirts a week, you know.

TI: So it was his way of just saying... this...

FS: Yeah, forget it.

TI: Yeah, if you, the way you treated me, and such.

FS: Yeah.

TI: Okay, interesting.

<End Segment 11> - Copyright © 2006 Densho. All Rights Reserved.