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TI: So I want to go back and talk about your family life. So you're living in kind of a second floor, and so your mother sounds like she was the one taking care of the family.

HS: She had to look after us, and conduct -- and we, and Mama and Mrs. Nishikaze always worked together in preparing our evening meal. They would make Japanese food.

TI: Oh, so the families would eat together?

HS: We would eat, we had another room behind the kitchen. There were several hotel rooms, that was just behind the kitchen. There was a general, there was a kind of a bathroom with a toilet, and then behind that was another one, two, three, four, four rooms. And one of those rooms had been converted into our dining room. It always had a piano in it as well, which I think the kids used, the Nishikaze family, the girls had to learn to play piano, and they learned to play it in the, in the dining room, when it was not being used as a dining room. We had a big table there, and we would all sit around that and have our -- it was Japanese food every night.

TI: And so every night there'd be, like, nine kids...

HS: Nine kids, yes.

TI: ...two mothers.

HS: Not always nine, because you, some of the older ones would, would be busy in the kitchen and they would, they would be in the restaurant and they would come back.

TI: Now, would the fathers ever join?

HS: Father would, they would always eat separately, yeah. They would, they would usually eat after everybody else, 'cause they were busy, you know, we would be having supper say around five, five to six o'clock, well, that would be their busy time as far as the restaurant was. Then they would come in as soon as things started to slow down, they would come back in and have their supper, too. And it was, the meal was always prepared by the women. Mr. Nishikaze never, like I say, he never made any Japanese food.

TI: So I'm curious, so when you guys all would eat together, would everyone be seated together? Would the mothers after they finished the food, put the food on, they'd sit and eat with you, all the kids?

HS: Not, not often.

TI: Or would just the kids eat...

HS: Kids would be, they would all eat together.

TI: And describe that. Was it pretty, was it pretty noisy with nine kids?

HS: No, well, we were pretty...

TI: Were you guys just hungry and just eating? [Laughs]

HS: We wouldn't be, no, it wasn't too boisterous. I mean, we weren't allowed to -- well, not so much allowed, but we just weren't, we had the older girls, Nishikaze girls, they had three girls that were, say, the oldest one was at least ten years older than I was. And there's Harry and myself and my sister Grace, and then, then Eva came along, and she was, she's even five years younger than I am, so she was pretty small at that point. And then the last was Ken, and he would be a baby. So, and on the other side there was the three girls that were ranging in age from about eight or nine to fourteen, fifteen, and they would, they would be there and they would, they were, in a way, they were mothers. So our mothers sometimes would eat with us. It depends on how busy, see, both mothers, both of the mothers, Mrs. Nishikaze and my mother, they also helped in the kitchen. Like they would be serving, they would act as waitresses, my father would be at the till, so he would serve whenever it was possible, but he would always look after the paying customers, customers when they came to pay. They always, they would come to the, come to the till to pay their, pay for their food, and then they would leave. So he would be, he would go there and collect the money. Things were pretty, a roast beef dinner at that time was, in the '30s, was fifty cents. You've gotta remember it was very, it was the depression time. Roast beef dinner was fifty cents, and that included the soup, the coffee, and the dessert, which was always a piece of pie.

TI: With the roast beef, potatoes, vegetables...

HS: Potatoes, everything, oh, yeah, gravy. And, of course, George, the cook, Mr. Nishikaze, like I say, he really, really knew how to cook. He was the type of cook that could, whatever he cooked, it was great food. He just, that's the way he was, he just had that knack of knowing exactly how to season everything, make gravy that was like, it was so well-made. He could make all the English things, like he could cook roast beef, pot roast. Of course, pot roast was very common, because it was, get a cheap piece of meat and make it into something that was pretty good. Stews, but pig hock, just as good as any that you could find in Germantown, he could make pig hock the same way. He'd make head cheese, make all kinds of things. He had a little area behind the kitchen, on the side of the kitchen, with a door that you could look outside, 'cause he liked to air it, and he'd have a, it was like a, he was almost like a butcher. He would, he would get great pieces of meat, and then he would chop it up and do exactly --

<End Segment 14> - Copyright © 2006 Densho. All Rights Reserved.