<Begin Segment 5>

TI: Well, let's talk about your family now a little bit more in terms of, so after your father and mother were married, what kind of work did they, did they do in the south end?

AA: My dad had a, had a hotel downtown Seattle, and then when the war ended, all the shipyards closed, and so they, the business floundered and so they went out of business.

TI: And so did he have the hotel before the war?

AA: No, no, after.

TI: Okay, let's talk about --

AA: Well, no, yes, during the war. They had a lot of shipyard workers living in the...

TI: Okay, before we get there, let's talk about before the war. So when you were growing up as a child, what kind of work did...

AA: Well, before the war, I wasn't born until '21.

TI: Well, so in the '20s, what kind of work do you remember?

AA: Well, after the, after the business was bankrupt...

TI: Oh, so you're talking, when you say "war," were you talking about World War I?

AA: World War I.

TI: Okay... so, okay. So World War I, they had a hotel downtown Seattle.

AA: Hotel, yes.

TI: And then that was doing fine, but then after the war, then business got bad.

AA: Yes. So he (worked) as a salesperson in the produce market down in Westlake (Ave).

TI: Okay, so he did that. And then how did that go?

AA: Well, we were barely able to make a living, I guess. In 19'... I think it was about 1930, my dad decided to go back to Japan to visit his folks, 'cause he had never gone back. And so when he came back, then he opened up this little grocery store up on Capitol Hill.

TI: And where was the grocery store located?

AA: On Belmont and Olive Way. It was an all-Caucasian neighborhood, and so I went to school, Lowell School up on Capitol Hill.

TI: So let me see if my Seattle geography is good. Belmont and Olive Way.

AA: Yes.

TI: So is that close to the B & O sort of restaurant?

AA: Yeah. The B & O restaurant took over the store that my dad had.

TI: Oh, so the B & O was the same building.

AA: Same location, same slot there.

TI: That's funny, I still go there and they have great desserts at night. Yeah, Belmont and Olive, is that why it's called the B & O? I just looked at that, B & O, Belmont and Olive?

AA: [Laughs] I don't know.

TI: I wonder if that's why it's called that. I just wrote that down.

AA: So we had that store until evacuation.

<End Segment 5> - Copyright © 2008 Densho. All Rights Reserved.