<Begin Segment 10>

TI: Okay, so we're on tape two, Henry, and so I want to go back, and tell me a little bit about your father. What was he like? What kind of man was he?

HS: Oh, Papa was, was, he was a person, very, very committed to the business of the restaurant and hotel. He ran it, and he managed it, so that it would make, it would make a small profit even in the depths of the depression.

TI: So he was a really good businessman.

HS: He was very good, well, what you might say, frugal, because he was a frugal person. And as a result, and hard-working (...) -- and the other thing that he, always remember him saying is that when you run a restaurant, if you run a restaurant, if you're the owner, you always stand by the cash register. That was his, his philosophy. That's where you would make or break your restaurant.

TI: Why is that? What's the purpose of having the owner by the cash register?

HS: Well, his idea was that if you're there by the, by the cash register, you don't have any slip-ups, not only that, there's no, there's no stealing of money from the till. The money goes directly in the till, and then also he could keep... he used to keep a ledger, how much he made every day, and then he used to always be very careful that way, in that figures were important to him, to know exactly how things were being run. He didn't have very much to do with us as kids. He never did, he was not, he was not, he was not a generous man. He was not a loving person in the sense that he never showed any emotion towards us as far as being kids. We always took him as being the father-figure that told us what had to be done, and that was it. And he didn't say very much. My mother was the other (hand), ran the household.

TI: Oh, going back to your father, so he didn't say much. When he did talk to you, was it in English or Japanese?

HS: Oh, in Japanese. He could speak English, but not, but he didn't, when he talked to us, it would always be in Japanese.

TI: Now when he was with, say, his peers, contemporaries, how would you describe his personality when you saw him in that kind of context?

HS: Oh, (...) he was the type of person that would be (reticent), not outgoing, okay. For one thing, he was not outgoing, but he was respected because of, he was just what you call a naturally intelligent type of person. I mean, he did common sense, but very, (...) much stubborn, but steadfast in his ideas. If he said that certain things had to be done a certain way, that's the way it was done. And the reasons why it went that way was because through experience, he knew that that was the way it would work. And he did have that aspect to it. He would do anything, any type of work that was necessary to get things done, so he was, he was a hands-on owner, he ran the cafe. If things were not running right, he would, he would always pitch in. He wouldn't, he wouldn't let... 'cause we didn't have any hired help, it was all done by the family. 'Cause otherwise you could not have survived that period of the depression unless it was done on the basis (...) that no money went out to the people that worked in it. Mr. Nishikaze had, they had... they had five children. We had four, Andy did not arrive until '37, so during the first, during those early '30s, it was a combination of the Nishikaze family and the Shimizu family running the restaurant. The girls would act as waitresses.

TI: And how old were the girls?

HS: Oh, the girls would be, the oldest one was about, the oldest one was the same age as my brother, so she would have been at least ten years older than we were. So when we were in those 1930s, I would be about, say, during the mid-'30s, five or six years old, they would be fifteen, sixteen. So they would, they had one that was about sixteen years old, and they had another one that, year younger or two years younger, fourteen, and they would work. And then they had a younger one, next one would be the boy who was, Koichi, who was, at that time, he would have been fourteen, thirteen or fourteen. So they would, they would all help in.

TI: And so what were some things that you had to do to help out?

HS: Well, we didn't do very much, because by the time I got to the point where, see, I was there from 1930, during the '30s I was too young to be of much help. But I know that we would do things like folding napkins and things of that nature. Harry and myself, we would have to fill a box, a box, toilet box full of napkins to, that's so that we could... amazing the number of napkins you use. [Laughs] And we used to fold them for a, a particular way. Of course, he had that cone-shaped, like a lapel, hankie in the lapel, like the, I don't know what you call it. A little cone-shaped peaked folding, and you fold it, and then you would, they would, we had a whole toilet box, cardboard box, and we have to fill it with those napkins. And then they would take them out and put, put about half, a dozen or so in a glass, a cup, and it would sit out several places on the tables.

TI: Now are these cloth napkins or paper?

HS: No, no, all paper. No, we never had cloth napkins. That's the type of restaurant we had, it was like a, it was a, it was a proper... well, today you would call it a cafe, I suppose.

TI: Now, your dad, when he, did he ever have to discipline you, or was it always your mother?

HS: Oh, yeah, he was, he would be discipline once in a while, but it was mostly my mother who looked after the kids.

TI: And so when your father had to discipline the kids, I mean, how would he do that?

HS: Oh, it was just mainly by voice.

TI: And that was like the law. When he said something... [laughs]

HS: Yeah.

<End Segment 10> - Copyright © 2006 Densho. All Rights Reserved.