<Begin Segment 7>

TI: So you were just starting to describe, when your father first started, how he bought a shed down by the highway, that was kind of the warehouse for the store. Tell me what the store looked like.

MY: Well, it's just, you think about it now, it looks like a regular old store that you find in a museum. Like I don't know if you've been to Auburn Museum, but that reminds me a lot of it, because there's all these canned goods, and then telephone hanging on the wall. And I'm wondering lately if that was the phone that my dad had in the store. Because when the war broke out, they left everything in a shed. In fact, Dad had even brought the old post office boxes down there. And then when we came back, they had the dojo there and everything, so all this stuff that, from the grocery stores tucked in that barn. And then in 1928, they started the dojo there, so then they had to take all the mailboxes and all that stuff out and throw it away.

TI: Because they needed the space for the dojo, so they had...

MY: Uh-huh.

TI: But going back to the store, so it's like an old country store, like, wood floors, counters, shelves with lots of canned goods. And if you thought of just like a typical day, how many people would come through the store? How crowded was it?

MY: I have no idea. I have no idea. I know that, I know people would come and go. Well, it was actually, could have been an all-nighter because, surprisingly, people would forget to buy bread or something and they'd come at nine o'clock at night and want to, you know, so one of us would take the key and go down and open up so they could buy bread or whatever.

TI: So the, your house, was that, like, attached to the store?

MY: It was right behind the house, I mean, right behind the store.

TI: So describe the house now. You had a large family, I'm curious, how large was the house, like how many rooms?

MY: Oh, it was big. I mean, oh, not a lot of pictures, but, well, it had to house all of us. By the time the boys got high school age or coming out of high school, they were starting their own business, so they had bought a gas station with a house attached, so that moved a couple of 'em out. And then as the Niseis grew older, the farmers became more independent, and they had somebody to drive 'em to the store. So naturally, grocery store like my dad's would naturally start slumping because they could, of course, go to the chain stores and get the groceries much cheaper. But...

TI: But going back just to the house, so, like, how many bedrooms did the house have?

MY: One, two, three, four... five.

TI: And so your parents had one, one bedroom, and then I'm guessing you and your sister had another bedroom, and then the boys shared the other rooms?

MY: Uh-huh.

TI: And like how large was, would you have a large dining room where everyone ate together?

MY: Yeah. Well, when we were kids, the kitchen was quite big. And they had, oh, in those days, they called it a parlor and a living room. So the part, dining room would be right behind... I don't know why, but they had a door, wall, between the kitchen and the dining room. And then there was another, it was part of the architecture, I guess. That separated the living room and the dining room and the living room, you know. I remember, well, it seemed like every holiday and everything, Mom would, she was quite handy. Or my dad was clumsy and couldn't do it or something. [Laughs] But she would find old lumber or something and build a table, what is it, 1x6 or 1x4 or whatever, they latched together like this, you know.

TI: So your mother would do it?

MY: My mother, uh-huh.

TI: That's unusual.

MY: Yeah. I don't know whether it was because she didn't mind doing it or because she couldn't wait for Dad to get to it. [Laughs]

TI: So she was handy with tools, she could make...

MY: Oh, yeah. In fact, the kitchen, the kitchen cabinets and everything, my mom built it all.

TI: Do you know where she learned how to become so handy?

MY: No, I don't know where she learned it, but I guess she figured, you know, Dad wasn't very handy with tools, so she had to do it if she wanted it, I guess.

TI: Oh, that's interesting.

<End Segment 7> - Copyright (c) 2009 Densho. All Rights Reserved.