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BY: So how much longer did you stay in Salt Lake after that?

MK: Well, as soon as the war ended and they said you could return, my father and Frank drove to Seattle to check on the house and everything before my mother and I followed. So they took an advance trip and came back.

BY: What did they find when they came to Seattle as far as the house and the store?

MK: Well, she kept it up. Oh, and she had made it a lot easier. She just doled out the sheets to the tenants.

BY: She didn't make the beds herself, in other words, she just...

MK: Yeah, so she just passed out the sheets so it was much easier for my mother after we returned.

BY: So your father, they came back and they got the house back then, essentially?

MK: Yeah.

BY: And just picked up where they left off? What about the store?

MK: Well, it was all gone.

BY: Okay, so then what did your father do? I mean, I'm sure he started some new business. What did he do?

MK: You know, I don't know what he did for a little while, but Mich, our friend's father, was a tailor. And he used to own a shop selling men's clothing, or he worked for somebody. Anyway, I don't know how they got together. But my father financed him, became a partner.

BY: In his tailor shop, or men's clothing shop?

MK: Yeah. He financed it. And, of course, he doesn't know anything, so he didn't work there. He hired his shirttail relative who was the accountant at the furniture store. So he owned that. He didn't do anything other than that, I don't think.

BY: Your father was an amazing businessman, I can tell, yeah. And so your mother was then, went back to running the boarding house. Did she do anything else?

MK: Oh, no. And then when we got back, a lot of the... like my aunt and stuff that lived in our house and the rooms, I don't know if they kicked the others out or what, but my aunt and Larry Matsuda's family, I remember Larry being there, but until they could find something.

BY: Yeah, because many people didn't have a place to live when they came back.

MK: Yeah, so they housed a lot of evacuees. I remember that.

BY: Okay, so now you're back and you start in high school now?

MK: Yeah. So I went to Broadway for my junior year, and then Broadway closed to become a technical school. So I spent the next, my senior year at Franklin.

BY: And you're young, you're fifteen, sixteen years old, right?

MK: Well, yeah. And Mich, you know, and quite a few Japanese. But the counselor, girl's counselor, told me that I could get into the U. But she, because of my age, and she said I was missing a science, actually, she suggested that I stay another year. She said, "I really don't recommend you going now. You're too young." And so I stayed a year, but then I lost my friends and everything. But I did go to the U and tried it a year, but it just wasn't the same for me. I just lost all interest in being there because I...

BY: Didn't have friends. And you were now not with the same group of kids that you had been with.

MK: So then I decided I would go to business college, follow my sisters and do that to keep busy. So I did that, and then I ended up with a business, I mean, working for the government like the rest of my sisters. So I put thirty years in with...

BY: So did your sisters who were in Washington, D.C., did they eventually come back to Seattle, or did they stay in Washington, D.C.?

MK: You know, they stayed there, and then one took a job in Japan. After the war, they wanted secretaries, and so she went and the other two followed.

BY: To Japan?

MK: Yeah, to work for the federal government. Because the benefits are really good. I mean, you know, the pay is good, but they were in the secretarial field. But the benefits are good, you know, housing is at a minimum, and you could eat at the officer's club. Like she said, turkey dinner was ninety cents. But anyway, so they were able to help our Japanese relatives.

BY: Oh, after the war?

MK: Yeah, because they should shop at the PX.

BY: Okay, so your Japanese relatives were all in Okayama area at that time?

MK: Uh-huh.

BY: Okay.

MK: My mother's side. And so they were able to buy things for them, and they had a military address so the shipping is cheap.

BY: Free. Well, the same as regular.

MK: Yeah. So once they got there, they got all my kimonos, and Mich and I took Japanese dancing, and so did another sister. So we sent everything that we had, that we could, my mother could gather. So they really benefited by my sisters being there, all three of them.

BY: Yeah.

<End Segment 20> - Copyright © 2022 Densho. All Rights Reserved.