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TI: So let me make sure I understand. So your father had shared an office with Thomas Matsuda at the Smith Tower.

EY: He shared an office and secretary in the Smith Tower.

TI: But you also mentioned Pier 9. So tell me about Pier 9, what was there?

EY: Well, my father and Tom's sharing of the office at Smith Tower was something that was ongoing. But when the importing and exporting business, because of the fear of war and the United States' action against trading, my father needed something else to do, because you can't do any oystering in the Smith Tower office building. So he seeked out a man by the name of... kind of slipped my mind. But do you remember George Cosmos? He was a bowler, and he had a concession or serving food at the bowling alley. But at the same time, he had an operation at Pier 9 where he hired some Japanese people and some, there was a Norwegian fellow, too, shucking oysters.

TI: So who owned this? Was it George who owned this, or your father owned the Pier 9 operation?

EY: Pier 9 operation was George Cosmos, and I think he had another partner.

TI: I see. And he hired Japanese to shuck oysters?

EY: And so some of these Japanese said... and there was a Norwegian fellow that could shuck oysters. And so my father felt that it was very convenient and appropriate for him to assume the assume the oyster shucking operation there. So he proceeded to prepare things. Then a problem, first problem came up, and that was a teamsters agent came by and said, "Gosh, if you're going to have a truck, you need to hire a teamsters driver." Well, for shucking, oyster shucking operation, to hire a teamsters driver, it was not possible, you know, because teamsters are very expensive. And so they kind of struggled. But the agent happened to be, happened to have gotten himself involved in an auto accident. And he person that was in the party was a member of the teamsters. And so therefore he owed... and the agent, it was that agent's fault for the accident happening. And so he just was not very much, very willing to release my father and say, well, "You can go ahead and do it," he needed somebody that he can catch and squeeze the money out of him.

TI: I see. So he was kind of like in debt to the teamsters, and so that's why he pushed your father harder because of that.

EY: And for my father, it would be impossible to operate an oyster operation with a teamster driver. So that turned into a failure. And so they didn't go any farther with that.

TI: But yet he still had an office at Pier 9, though.

EY: Yes. The office was upstairs, there was a small office space upstairs. And so he needed to store some of these things from the Smith Tower as well as anything that he had then. Well, I didn't know, my mother didn't know, my father didn't know, that the piers on the Seattle waterfront was a restricted area. We didn't know. We were ninety miles away from Pier 9 at Samish Bay, but we did know that we'd had a restriction of the distance, so we were running back and forth.

TI: So to make sure I understand, so Pier 9, so after the war started, the piers were kind of a restricted area?

EY: That was restricted area.

TI: And also you lived in Samish Bay, which was ninety miles away. And so during the curfew, you weren't supposed to go more than, what, like five miles from your home.

EY: My mother and I was running back and forth. [Laughs]

TI: So why were you going back and forth from Samish Bay to Pier 9? Why did you go to Pier 9?

EY: Well, we had concerns. My father, his business was selling oyster seed. And a lot of the people, probably new people, wanted to know, and wanted my father to go and look at the beds to see if the ground was appropriate for planting oyster seed. So his office was full of charts from Alaska to San Diego. And we felt that if the FBI agent should see all of that, why, it was a sure bet that they were going to take my father away, and we didn't want that to happen. So we went down there, over to Pier 9, and looked, and gosh, everywhere we looked was all sounding charts. We didn't know what to do, but we decided, well, if we have to destroy it, we have to destroy it. So we started tearing up all the charts. Well, we had a neighbor, an artist next door, and we were making so much noise that he opened the door and stuck his head in. And our heart jumped, you know, and we said, "This is hopeless. There isn't anything we can do about it." So we, "Well, let's lock up and go home." And so that's what we did. We locked up and went home and we worried about what to do. But the team of FBI agents and elderly woman and an elderly gentleman came and told my father, he said, "I've come to see you, and then I'd like to look at some documents," we have. And also, "We've been looking for you for quite a long time."

TI: So did the FBI agents know about sounding charts back at Pier 9?

EY: They didn't know anything about Pier 9.

TI: So they never did find those, then.

EY: Nobody ever found it. And I called up the owner of the pier, Mrs. Ward of Virginia Dock & Trading Company. She had a stern wheeler that was running between Seattle and, I think, Vancouver. And she was bringing down paper pulp, newspaper material I think it was. And so, you know, our situation was that we had no business, so it was my job to call up Mrs. Ward and say, "Mrs. Ward, you know, because of this war situation, we're in a terrible situation. We can't pay you the rental. So instead of the, for the rental, could you take the furniture, the desks, rugs and whatever it is that is available?" And she said sure. She was a very nice lady, and so she agreed to that. But when we came back, she was on the phone and asked us, "Would you like to have some of those things back?"

TI: Oh, so after the war?

EY: After the war. And how she knew, I don't know, but she called me, got the phone number, and called me.

TI: And do you think she was the one maybe who cleaned up all the charts and everything?

EY: She did clean up everything for us. I told her, and she said, "Oh, we will take care of it."

TI: So she really helped you a lot.

EY: She was a nice lady. Not only in help, but she was a real nice lady. You know, around Seattle, the stern wheeler, remember those, stern wheeler? That was her boat, I guess. And that's what she was using to haul the newsprint between here and, I think it was Vancouver.

TI: Good, interesting story.

EY: Virginia Dock & Trading Company.

<End Segment 2> - Copyright © 2014 Densho. All Rights Reserved.