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TI: And so your father, it sounds like he liked to learn new things, like cutting hair or cooking, and then he would start his own little business.

SO: That's, working for Mr. Grinnell, he moved, opened his own barbershop. And then with... now, after he got married and then with three children, he needed more income, so he moved to, two miles away to Kainalio, found a old building, and then he made a shoe house over there. Then that, he had two children over there, then he moved to the present location, and then that's where he started with a snack shop.

TI: So a snack shop, and did he still have a barber shop, too?

SO: At that time, no, not yet.

TI: Okay, snack shop...

SO: He just started a snack shop first.

TI: With a movie, or a, kind of a show place?

SO: Well, the first move was into a small house way, he had a show house. Then he moved three buildings across, toward the south, where he opened a snack shop.

TI: Okay. Let's talk about the show house first. Tell me what a show house is. What would be in a show house?

SO: Show houses have just Japanese shibai, all those things, and then silent movie. Then he wanted to get into bigger things, so he moved to the present location to open the snack shop, and they started to add more merchandise and then increase the business to support his family.

TI: And back in those days, who would be the customers of the snack shop?

SO: Oh, they were mostly coffee farmers who couldn't afford too much. Because those days, one piece of an pan used to be five cents, and soda pop used to be five cents, so that's all they could afford. So there wasn't much. But after we moved to the present location, then my mother learned to make ice cream. So we used to make ice cream, too. And since not too much milk was available, she used to use a canned cream. And that's how we started, selling ice cream.

TI: So for refrigeration, was there electricity or was it ice to keep things cold?

SO: There's no, there wasn't any electricity, so just had to use ice. So we had to sell it as fast as we can.

TI: Now, going back to your mother, what was your mother's name?

SO: My mother's name was Matsu Oshima, M-A-T-S-U.

TI: And her family name was?

SO: Tatsuguchi.

TI: And so she came about 1914, you said.

SO: Yeah.

TI: Describe what she was like. If you had to describe, like, her personality, what was she like?

SO: Oh, she was a nice, cool-headed lady. She kept on helping her husband, my father, do all the housework while he was busy. At first, (...) my father (...) bought a used car, and then he was running a taxi business to survive. And later on he opened a barber shop, but at first it was just taxi business and snack shop.

TI: And so a taxi business, so he bought a used car, and then he would drive people around and they would pay him?

SO: That's right. Those days, farmers couldn't afford cars, so to get to places, they had to hire a taxi. In those days, phone call used to be five cents to call locally, and to call north, you had to pay ten cents. So that used to be the charges.

TI: And did people come to the store to make phone calls, or did people have phones?

SO: Well, they used to go to the neighbor and borrow the phone so they can get transportation.

TI: Okay. So your father had the snack shop and then the taxi, and then what came next after those two?

SO: Those two and then he needed extra income, so they had the children to go out and help the farmers harvest coffee. So first, my oldest brother went to seventh grade, and then after he became fifteen years old, Father asked him to help run the taxi business. So that's how they started. The first car they bought was a used Durant car, and then the second used car they bought was a Starbrand car. Durant car was made by General Motors, I'm pretty sure. That was way back. And we had photos where, olden days, the cars used to have a running board. So all the children used to sit on the running board, and had one picture where my brother was on the steering wheel, (...) and my mother in the back seat, and my father was on the side and the children all lined up (on the running board) taking pictures.

TI: Was the car moving, or it was just stopped?

SO: Just parking, stopped and then... so we have two photos, one with the Starbrand car and one with the Durant car.

<End Segment 3> - Copyright © 2010 Densho. All Rights Reserved.