<Begin Segment 17>

SY: So, now, why was it that he moved from Denver to Los Angeles?

PM: 'Cause he wanted to come back to Los Angeles. And the business wasn't that, doing that well in Denver. And I happened to be working there, and so he couldn't sell the business so I continued it for a couple of years, and I was finally able to sell it and then I came back to Los Angeles. At that time I had two children, so we came back and then I worked for him, and I didn't have any more children.

SY: Wow. You actually stayed in Denver and ran the business for him for two years.

PM: For two years. Because he couldn't sell it.

SY: And what did you do? You were running the employment agency?

PM: Uh-huh.

SY: So you were getting jobs for people?

PM: Yes.

SY: And how many people were working there when you were?

PM: Probably just a couple.

SY: And how big was it when he was there? How big was the business?

PM: Not that many more, maybe about three people. It was just a small office.

SY: And then did he ask you to stay in Denver? Was that his choice, or were you...

PM: Well he couldn't sell it, and I decided just to stay.

SY: And that was fine with Fred. So how old were your children then?

PM: They were, Joanne was two and a half and so Gary must've been about three and a half. They're only one year apart.

SY: And you were working and taking care of the kids.

PM: Yes.

SY: How did you manage that?

PM: [Laughs] I used babysitters, the next door lady, Mrs. Humboldt, to take care of the kids during the day, and so I was able to work. And then Fred was working for the government and not earning much money, so at night I'd come home and then I went out to work part time for Aldrich & McCabe, made a little bit of money there. Money was very tight in those days.

SY: Wow. So you worked in the family business during the day and then worked at night in a different business.

PM: Turned out that I was making more money at night, so I hired somebody during the day to work in the employment agency.

SY: Wow. Did that give you any feeling like, "I would rather work somewhere else than work in the employment agency"? [Laughs]

PM: Yes, yes. [Laughs] I'm afraid that I really didn't like employment agency too much, but when we came back to Los Angeles I worked there until one day somebody -- well, Dad always advertised in the Hawaii newspapers, if you want a job call Yamato Employment Agency, and so pretty soon about fifty percent of our applicants were from Hawaii. One day TransOcean Airlines, a supplemental carrier, came in and said, "How about selling tickets for us?" And that's how we started the travel business. So he went to Hawaii and set up about three agents to sell tickets for us, then he advertised in the newspapers, "Come to Los Angeles, we'll find you a job, and if you don't have anywhere to go you can always come to Yamato Employment Agency and we will always help you cash your check." We'll -- he even lent money, actually -- but, "We'll meet you at the airport and find a place for you stay," so he had many dormitory-like rooms that he worked with some people to find them a place to stay and helped them find jobs.

SY: So he, then would he go back and forth from Hawaii while he was doing this?

PM: No, we would just correspond or telephone them.

SY: So he put you in charge of the travel business?

PM: Yes, just because I enjoyed it more working with people who are happy to be going somewhere rather than trying to collect from people who are trying to find a job. [Laughs] And in those days we had to collect from the client. Nowadays the employers pay the fees, but in those days the people who came to look for a job had to pay a fee, and it was very hard for me to collect when they didn't have enough money to begin with.

SY: I see.

PM: Yeah, so then I started working in the travel agency, and then it just outgrew the employment agency and so we finally closed the employment agency. We were getting too many immigrants that couldn't speak English. It was hard to find jobs for them.

SY: I see.

<End Segment 17> - Copyright &copy; 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.