<Begin Segment 18>

TI: How about your friends in school? Do you remember who those were, your friends?

HS: Oh, there, we had Japanese kids about, there's a whole, there's a whole group of Japanese kids of about four or five that I chummed with, but they were not my close friends. The friends I had there were what we used to call the "Fraser Street gang." Harry, my, partner's son, their family lived on Fraser Street, which was two blocks over, well, one and a half blocks over from where, where our restaurant was. And that street, we had about five to seven of us kids that used to chum around all the time, and even at, and there was, Harry was in another class. He was not in my same class, he was in the same level, but he was on a, in another room. We had two classes of grade one, I think it was, and he was in another, he was in another, another classroom. So anyhow, we, we used to chum around, as well as the fact that we had three or four other white kids and one Chinese kid that became this group that we used to call ourselves the "Fraser Street gang," which was made up of about seven people, seven kids, anywhere from five to seven kids. It would always, it would always vary. There was another Japanese kid called Nakatani, and he would, he was always on the same street as well. And, but, I forgot his first name, Sam, something like that. Anyhow, there were three Japanese kids, there was a Chinese kid, and then three white boys.

TI: And the whites, do you remember what descent they were?

HS: One of 'em was Billy, who was, who was the son of the, the, Danny, the Serb that got killed, and he, he was one of our friends. And he was also in the same class. And then there was, there was two other guys, kids, but I've forgotten who they were.

TI: So your friend whose father was killed, did that happen when...

HS: I was there, yeah.

TI: So how old were you about when that happened?

HS: When that happened, when I was about ten years old.

TI: Okay, so your, so your good friend, you see that happen to your good friend's father.

HS: Yeah, it happened to a good friend's father. We had been friends from grade one, okay, 'cause it was soon afterwards, grade one or grade two, and certainly by grade two and three, we had been together, so I would be, what, seven, eight, nine, so I would be about grade three or four by the time that happened.

TI: Now, I'm curious, it sounded like the Serb, there was a strong Serbian community, there was a strong Japanese community, you were friends. Did, did the two of you ever share or bring each other into that community?

HS: No, we never did. We, Billy, we stayed, he never was in our place or we were never in his place. People that did come over were the Japanese kids, and we had another group of kids that we would know that were, lived near our place, and that was another group of people that we used to chum with.

TI: Now, why do you think that was, that the Japanese never brought in, like, your white friends home, and the white friends never brought you home? Was there ever, what's your, what's your thinking?

HS: Gee, you know, it never occurred to us, we never did, we never did want to go in...

TI: But you would go to your Japanese friends' homes.

HS: No. Well, later on, yes, when I got older, but by then, our Fraser Street gang had pretty well changed, broken up. Billy was, had left, and, because after his father was killed, he, they left Prince Rupert.

<End Segment 18> - Copyright © 2006 Densho. All Rights Reserved.