<Begin Segment 14>

SY: Your family, how did they see you, do you think?

TF: You know, what's hard is because we were all so separated during the war. My oldest sister went out to work here, my other sister went to St. Louis, another one was in Chicago and then my father was somewhere else. And then we all come together, and from the time I was twelve, I always worked, and I always contributed to the household. When I couldn't, when I was really twelve and couldn't really go out and work at a job so much, but I think I did. My sister forged a paper to say I was thirteen, and I worked in an office filing. And my eyes are so bad, I was always nauseated from looking so closely, but I did that. I went to work in some factories where you put rhinestones in jewelry, and then another friend of mine, her mother had a business going at home where she had Santa Claus things, you put a little cotton. So if you do a thousand you make so much money. And she had cheap socks, and you get cheap paper and you wrap it around and so you do a whole bunch. I always worked at something and we always all contributed to the family. When I was going to high school, I worked in a dry cleaners. And then before I went to school in the morning, I worked in a hotel as a waitress. I remember I got a whole dollar once for breakfast. That was a lot of money in those days.

SY: So this was something that you did because you wanted to help, you wanted to make money?

TF: It just seemed like everybody was working, and so it just seemed natural. And of course when I think about it now, I wouldn't allow my child, I don't think, at an early age to go wandering and doing all... but maybe because they kind of lost control, but I wasn't doing anything really bad. But I did get to love music. I loved the sounds of Billy Eckstine, Dinah Washington, and I would sometimes -- I was much too young -- but I know I was going to the clubs to go listen to the black artists. How did my father allow that?

SY: By yourself?

TF: No, I had...

SY: Friends?

TF: It was a man who was with the Nisei Taxi Company who would take me. And he was, his name was -- I don't know his last name -- so his mother must have fooled around, his name was Pancho. He had a sister, they both looked mixed. Maybe the mother was married to him, I don't know. But he was with the Nisei Taxi Company, and every day when I would go to school, and then sometimes I'd get nauseated in those days from riding the streetcar, I'd call the Nisei Taxi Company, they would bring me home. Well, I got to be friends with a man from the Nisei Taxi Company. And so they got used to my phone calls, and pretty soon I didn't have to pay 'em, they'd just drive me home. But I remember he took me to a couple of nightclubs he knew, and then he died early. In fact, he taught me also how to drive. And I think we got into some little accident which was really my fault, but he took the blame for it. I really would like to have said to him now, "I remember that," and thank him for his kindness, because he never took advantage of me. He was really a gentleman, and sweet and nice.

SY: And you were probably what? By then, fourteen, fifteen?

TF: Thirteen, fourteen, too young. Too young to go, but that was something I...

SY: Enjoyed.

TF: ...enjoyed, I loved the black sounds, the black sound, and the musicians, and we lived on the south side. There were a lot of clubs and something. So probably I wasn't out real late, so I could get away with it.

<End Segment 14> - Copyright © 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.