<Begin Segment 21>

MN: Now this is after the war and there's a housing shortage. Where did you and your father stay?

KI: I stayed at the Berkeley Methodist Church because it was serving as a hostel until I could find a place to stay. Strange part of it is, it never occurred to me to ask my father where he was staying 'cause he didn't stay at the church. So I have feeling he was renting a room someplace and doing his work, 'cause he was doing gardening but he... I remember he had tools but he had to carry them on the bus to go to the different places. And one of his customers was this woman who worked for the university and he knew that she had an extra room upstairs, she was an old miss, and he asked if I could and live with her. So she interviewed me and I interviewed her so to speak and she said, "Yes, Kazuko can come and stay with me," so that was the first time I had a room to myself, nice sunny room upstairs and a bathroom to myself. And she was a wonderful lady, she was a wonderful lady. Since she was by herself we cooked together and ate together in a little breakfast nook. And my responsibility was when I came home from school on certain days I'd dust things off and clean things off and work in the kitchen with her. I mean, we did it together except for the cleaning of the house which wasn't very... it wasn't strenuous. I mean, she had a living room that was wall to wall books but I didn't have to go dusting every one. Some people I'm sure would've been really nitpickers but she says just make it nice and clean and livable and stuff. And I did have to clean the bathrooms was where I learned to do that kind of stuff, she had to teach me. But she taught me, but we cooked together and did the dishes together and she did her thing and I did my things, I did my studying. And she would take, sometimes she would take these field trips I was telling you about that she would off and otherwise she would... she didn't drive and the bus stop was right across the street from her house. So I'd see her getting on the bus with her little hat and her briefcase and she'd go down to the university.

MN: And at this time you're a high school student?

KI: Yeah, right.

MN: So which high school did you go to?

KI: Berkeley, Berkeley was the only high school in Berkeley.

MN: Was it pretty close to where you were doing the school house work?

KI: No.

MN: Schoolgirl, I'm sorry.

KI: No, I had to take the street car and the bus down to there and transfer. Yeah, I could never walk 'cause most places where they could afford schoolgirls were up in the hills.

MN: Now your family eventually reunited in Berkeley. Why didn't you return and live with your family?

KI: I don't know. I guess I just got into the lifestyle of going to school, and plus I guess maybe my friends were doing it. We had the little... it was sort of independence too and we were earning a little money while we're doing it. And I think some of us felt that we would be less of burden on our parents when they were just getting back. But since they were in Berkeley I could always come home on the weekends or holidays or whenever I needed to get off. But my mother and brother and two sisters, because they had no place to go when the camp actually closed, went to Hunter's Point in San Francisco where a lot of people went. And they stayed there a couple of months or I don't know for how long, but then when my father found the house then they moved over.

MN: And did your father open another nursery?

KI: No, he just worked out of the house, out of the home.

<End Segment 21> - Copyright © 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.