<Begin Segment 15>

TI: So let's talk about, so where did you go after Minidoka? What was the next step?

KT: Well, the next step, when we were allowed to come back, I think that was early '45, I believe it was. Like I said before, my father and mother and myself, we loaded the things what we could into our car and drove back home. And my older sister and my younger brother followed, they came by train over there. And we came back to the hotel and we lived at the Del Mar hotel from that point on.

TI: And when you returned, did the neighborhood look different after being gone for a couple years?

KT: Not that much noticeably different, yeah, I think. I don't remember any real distinction.

TI: How about the state of the hotel? I mean, was it in pretty good shape?

KT: Oh, the inside of the hotel was okay. It was really... couldn't think what... and I think we had, shortly thereafter, it was the restaurant across the street from Washington, Washington Street that the gas was leaking. And a city gas main was leaking and filled up the whole underground basement with gas, and these restaurant owners, there was the Otani brothers that had the restaurant down there, they came down to the restaurant and they started up their fans and motor. And then a spark set off that, lit off that gas, and it blew up. And I, there was a transient standing in the corner of First and Washington, and he got thrown off the, by the blast, erupted, and threw his body right into our hotel. And it hit our hotel side and he fell down and got caught in our first, first floor fire escape landing. And I remember... and it did quite a bit of damage to our hotel, windows were all blown out and whatnot. And as we were cleaning up, I remember one of the tenants telling me there was a body out there on the fire escape landing. So I went up there and looked at the body, I said, "Holy Moses." So I ran downstairs to get hold of a policeman to report the body in there. And I remember seeing his jeans, and his jeans, right by the buttons was split. His trousers were just literally split apart. I said, "Holy Moses," you know. I remember seeing the body there, I didn't touch the body or anything, I just called the police and had him hauled away.

TI: Okay. That was pretty traumatic. When you returned, how did people, how did they greet you? You mentioned how you knew lots of the store owners and people before the war and they kind of knew you. When you returned, what kind of reaction would you get when they saw you?

KT: I don't remember any animosity or them not being glad to see us. And then the proprietorship changes as time, so I don't know whether the same people were running that magazine shop down below our hotel or not, but there was another shop, and it might have been a different owner.

TI: And then in terms of the business, was it thriving after your dad got back, and was it easy to keep the hotel filled up and busy?

KT: Yeah. Our business was, well, we had some bad days, but generally speaking, it kept us busy.

<End Segment 15> - Copyright © 2009 Densho. All Rights Reserved.