<Begin Segment 13>

MA: Okay, so we were talking about your family's move from Heart Mountain to St. Paul, and you were saying that your family friend had moved to Minneapolis and started up some sort of restaurant.

GH: He had a restaurant, Japanese restaurant.

MA: And then told your father about it?

GH: Uh-huh. He told my father that he could help him find a place in St. Paul, so he found one. So, in fact, I think one... I found out later, I can't remember all the details. But I found out later that he, my father and my brother or before my brother went into the service, they went to Minneapolis and looked it over or whatever. I don't remember too much. But anyway, it turned out that there was this Japanese family selling a restaurant. It was a tiny restaurant. It's too bad it was small, you know, it could have, he could have used a bigger one. But he, they were selling, and so that's the one he was buying. So this friend put us up, it was so nice of him. We got there, we stayed in Minneapolis until we were ready to move into St. Paul. And then we had to stay in a hostel. That's what they did in those days, when they were getting people to resettle outside, they put up hostels. And I don't know exactly what, they were churches or what. They found places in the cities, different cities, to put people up until they get settled and find their own apartments.

MA: Right, because you had no furniture, no possessions.

GH: No place to go, nothing. So we found a rented place, furnished place, because we knew it was temporary. So we couldn't get into anything that was unfurnished and have to buy all the furniture. Who knows, it might be three months or four months. It turned out to be about August, we got there... about nine months, I think.

MA: In St. Paul?

GH: St. Paul.

MA: So, but you couldn't return to Hawaii, it was closed to...

GH: He needed, I guess my dad needed approval from Washington.

MA: To return to Hawaii? Okay.

GH: Uh-huh. So when he got word is when we decided to go back.

MA: But before that, that's when you spent that time in St. Paul?

GH: St. Paul. We had to find someplace to stay, and he couldn't just be idle, so he found a restaurant and they did quite well at the restaurant. Because there was Fort Snelling there, outside of St. Paul, Minneapolis, and they would come in a bus. And the guys would come out and they'd just want to eat Japanese food.

MA: All the Nisei soldiers?

GH: Uh-huh. And it was a language school. It was a language school, they learned their Japanese.

<End Segment 13> - Copyright © 2009 Densho. All Rights Reserved.