<Begin Segment 21>

TI: And then during this time, what was happening with your father now? Let's talk about your father and getting his work started again. What was he doing?

FK: Well, that's when... there was so much going on. We drove back, we didn't have a house to return to, because the house that we bought in Boyle Heights was not vacated. The previous owner was still living there, and there was a big housing shortage postwar. So she, in the meanwhile, we stayed -- I don't know where my father got all this stuff -- but we stayed in a boarding house in west L.A. Do you know Rosie Honda in west L.A.? Well, I didn't know what a boarding house was 'til I met her. It was a long building, rooms on both sides, and a kitchen at the middle or someplace. And they had it, they had this in west L.A. because a lot of the bachelor gardeners used to live there prior to the war, and they all had a place to live. And when the war ended and everyone flooded L.A. for housing, my father apparently had invested or given money towards this boarding house. So they opened up a couple of rooms for my family to sleep in. So there we were, sleeping and eating with strangers, just like camp again. And I don't know... anyhow, it seemed like it was non-ending.

TI: Well, a theme that comes through a lot in this interview is your father's connections.

FK: Right.

TI: Whether they were former patients or from donations that he gave or investments, it seemed that a lot of these came back into play later on in terms of helping the family.

FK: Right.

TI: And that seems to come up over and over and over again.

FK: I guess that's a Japanese thing. We use those key words, on or gaman or all that kind of stuff. I'm not sure where you fit 'em in.

TI: It's just more than, I think, any other interview I've done, this one keeps coming back and back and back. It's interesting. So your, so you found a place to stay, your boarding house...

FK: That was temporary.

TI: Temporary. And then eventually you moved to Boyle Heights.

FK: Yes.

TI: Eventually your father was able to return to the hospital and get that going?

FK: Yeah, but that's when he sent for this Frances Shimizu, she was a very capable Nisei. If she were alive today, she'd be a hundred and fifty years old. She's really a super lady. In fact, her family was quite prominent in Pasadena, Kato family. One of her brother-in-laws was an artist with one of the studios. He did scenes, I don't know art enough to say anything, but he was quite prominent.

TI: So Frances (Kato) Shimizu helped your father reestablish the hospital by getting, I guess, a lot of the furnishings and restocking and organizing and everything?

FK: Right. It was wiped out clean, I think.

TI: And in terms of patients, was it pretty much the same patients for your father that just would return to him, or was it different?

FK: They were there. He didn't advertise or anything, but they were there in the waiting room. And this was days before, before insurance and all that. So they would come in and take a number and wait, I guess.

<End Segment 21> - Copyright © 2009 Densho. All Rights Reserved.