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TI: Okay, so now I'm going to move you to some of your memories, then. Let's now go to California. And why did your father and mother decide to go from Chicago back to California?

FS: Oh, that's a good question. Because my mother told me two of my older brothers died, infant, because of the cold. That was bad timing of my father. He could have had a kid born in summertime, before, you know what I mean, so it'd go through. But I lost two older brother, what do you call it? Influenza or some kind of sickness, cold. So my mother wanted to get out of Chicago, and then she decided she wanted to go to Seattle, but Seattle was not a prosperous town. There was a lot of discrimination in Seattle. I don't know if somebody would tell you, but that's what my dad and mother, when I hear their conversation. And the weather was not so good; they didn't like that balmy, wet weather in Seattle. And then they heard from people that Los Angeles was a good place. They jumped Frisco and they came to L.A. And it was sunny, and they went into the restaurant business and that was it before the war broke out.

TI: Okay, that makes sense. But you talked about your two older brothers who died. Did you have any other siblings besides...

FS: I had a sister in Japan, but she was given to my uncle. My uncle didn't have no kids, so he wanted kids, so my mom said, "Why don't I give you a daughter?" In Japan, daughters are useless.

TI: And where was your sister born? Was she born in the United States and then sent to Japan?

FS: I think, I think she, my mom gave birth in Japan. On one of the trips, they were going back and forth. See, my dad had a funny habit, he didn't like to stay in one restaurant, one place. He built it up, he'd buy a restaurant that's nothing, worth nothing, and then build it up and sell it for what do you call that? Goodwill? Built-in...

TI: Right, so...

FS: Profit.

TI: Profit, yeah.

FS: And then he'll get another restaurant.

TI: Oh, interesting. So he was like an entrepreneur. He would like to start things up, build up the business, sell it as an ongoing business and then start another one.

FS: And what started this was that profit he took back to Japan. Because when he left Japan, his family had nothing. See, my grandfather drank it up. He drank all, everything up, and then finally he had no more money to drink. So he became a priest, local priest. Now, priests in Japan are invited to parties. Funeral, you know where they call three-day, five-day, so they have all the food and all the drink. And my grandfather, people in my family were pretty smart, lot of respect. They were sly, you know? I call that being sly. He was not a... you know.

TI: Yeah, so who told you this story about your grandfather?

FS: I think my mom and my dad used to slip it up once in a while. I was just like my grandfather, I was this way, that way. But my mom never talked about her older brother, and he was a policeman in Tokyo. He was about a sergeant, and then he retired and went back to Hiroshima. This was before the war broke out. But anyway, he never talked, because I think in my mom's eyes, she just didn't want to talk about it. Nothing prominent.

TI: So you knew more about your father's side.

FS: Yeah, because we had the drunken priest.

TI: Oh, that's a good story.

<End Segment 4> - Copyright © 2009 Densho. All Rights Reserved.