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TI: Your father, any reaction from your father during this time period that you can recall?

ST: No. My father, because of the business, and because he didn't leave us alone at night, you know, he always was there, he didn't involve himself in community affairs. He didn't join community groups or anything like that, so there was no, he wasn't on any lists, you might say. He felt his business was to take care of the two of us, and that was it. He knew the people, of course, but he just didn't involve himself in that. So there was no, there's no one that would be knocking at the door, you know, or anything like that. So, and then he was... and I think this was probably true of all parents. They protect their children, they don't talk about things that might upset their kids and make them uncertain or uneasy. And he was always rather to himself, and I think this was a generational thing as well as a Japanese thing. And so we didn't know about very many things, what was going on. When we got the order to, that we were going to have to evacuate, he still didn't talk too much about it, but he started organizing. He started building, he said, "We're going to have to store our things away," so he started building crates to store, to store things in. Because we had the Girl's Day dolls, and we had things of that sort. And at this time, we were still very close to the Browns, and they had a big garage. They did not have a car, but they had this big garage, and it had a good roof on it (and everything). And so he asked them if they would store our things for us, we didn't know how long that would be. And of course they said, "Yes," and they were very supportive all during this time. And so we crated everything up, and I don't know how Dad got it over there, we had a car. But slowly, all the things were in the crates, were over there, and he set it up and got tarps to protect it, because he said, "You never know how long this is going to be." But he did this very quietly. The other thing was we tried to sell off everything we had. The store inventory, we had a sale, and I remember at this time, my dad said, "Well, is there anything of yours that you don't need anymore?" He said, you know, "Like all your dolls or things, do you really need them?" I said, well, at this time, I had just passed my twelfth birthday, and, of course, I had all these dolls, but of course, I was twelve years old. So I remember my very favorite doll, I took out and put in the store window. We put a lot of our things out there. And it had handmade clothes because Mary Brown, the youngest daughter, who was my mentor, had made a lot, a whole wardrobe for this doll, 'cause it had been my favorite doll all along. So I put the clothes out for that alongside the doll. And a father and a little girl came in and bought it. And I told, showed her how they worked and everything, and I gave it to her. The father... she really liked -- it was a worn doll, it had been much loved. It had worn spots on it and everything, but you know, it was still cute.

TI: And during this time, do you recall whether or not your father had to really slash prices or sell things?

ST: Yes, he did. And the one thing I remember was that one day, this man came in and just kind of, he was looking around at everything. You know, there were people coming in and trying to, buying, bargaining down. And he said, "I'll take everything you have here," and he mentioned the price. Now, I'm not sure if I remember this correctly, but I thought he said, "I'll pay you fifty dollars for your inventory." And my father was angry. I could tell, 'cause his face went red. And he said, "Well, it's worth a lot more than that." He says, "Well, that's what you say," but the attitude was, "take it or leave it." And, of course, you know, that was pretty much it. So I think my father took it. Now, I'm not hundred percent sure on this part, I just remember that one little incident. And so that's what we did. We sold the car, and, but I was really surprised when we ended up at the assembly center. What my father had arranged for us to have, you know, we had, he decided that in order to make things right, we were gonna have to do things. So somehow -- and I don't know how these things arrived -- there was a small washboard, he had a bottle of bleach, and he had a package of soap. And this was all in the bucket, and there was a bucket. And so he said, and so when we went to the assembly center to do laundry and things, I had all this to take. Because my father said, "Okay, we're in the camp now." Up to now, he had done all the laundry. We had never touched laundry. And he said, "Your sister is, has a job as a waitress there at the assembly center." And he says, "It doesn't, it isn't appropriate for me to be doing the laundry now." And so he said he thinks it would be a good idea if I took over the laundry, to be my contribution. And I said, "Okay," because all my friends would help me, because we did everything together. And so that's what I did. And especially that sticks because the first time I went to do laundry and my girlfriends were with me, I took out my washboard, and Dad said how much bleach I was supposed to put in with the soap and everything. And so I was doing that, and I brought my bottle of bleach out. And immediately one of the other women, one of the women came over, running over to me and said, "Oh, you have bleach. May I have a little bit? Just a little bit?" And I said -- she was being very smiley, smiley, but she was very aggressive. And it scared me. I'd never been pressed like that. No one had ever, you know, pressed me. And I knew that, I'm not sure, I might have given her one, and then immediately, I think everybody, the women. And I knew that if I gave everybody some, I would have none left, and Dad would be upset. Because after all, this was supposed to be ours, and how long was it supposed to last? I didn't know. So I said, "I can't give you any." And so then the other women just turned around and they were muttering to themselves. But that scared me. That's when I realized that all Japanese are not smiley-smiley. [Laughs]

TI: Oh, that's interesting.

<End Segment 14> - Copyright © 2009 Densho. All Rights Reserved.