<Begin Segment 2>

BF: Well, let's talk a little bit about the business. How did it start? What was your father actually doing?

TM: Well, it, he started out in two primary areas. In Tacoma, as it was in Seattle, there was a number of Japanese grocery stores that used to deliver to the outlying lumber camps, fishing camps and farms. And I guess my father probably saw the same opportunity in Tacoma. So he set up a grocery store, but his primary business was to deliver miso and shouyu and rice to railroad camps and fishing camps that were closer to Tacoma than Seattle. And the other thing is that he brought the skill of making kamaboko and satsumaage which the other merchants didn't have. So either, during the evening he would make satsumaage or kamaboko, and then during the day, maybe a couple days a week he would then load the truck up and bring these items, including kamaboko, satsumaage he made too -- I remember going with him to a fishing camp, lumber camp, farm and he might have gone to other camps. But there were concentrations of primarily bachelors in these camps, and they didn't want to eat the hakujin food they called it, so that was his business.

BF: And, and let's see, this was probably around what time period? Nineteen --

TM: Well he started the business in 1928 from what we heard so...

BF: Okay.

TM: So until he got married in '33, I don't know what he did as himself. Probably, that's may -- maybe a reason why he called his brother for help. I don't know. Maybe, I don't know. But...

BF: And so, it was -- he had a small retail shop in Tacoma, and then, so who manned the shop while he was doing deliveries? Or did he do it early in the morning kind of thing?

TM: I don't know prior, but after he got married then my mother was watching the shop, raising three, four kids and doing everything. But in those days I think they all did that. And I think they -- I remember having a few people come up to me and they, saying that they used to work for my dad, and I don't remember but, so he must have hired a few people from time to time.

BF: And it was, I mean it was literally in, in like a buggy that he would go do these deliveries?

TM: Uh-huh. It was a black panel truck, I remember, because I -- when I went with him, I guess I must have been an age where I couldn't go to school. I wasn't in school probably. So I remember going with him and sleeping on the rice or whatever --

BF: [Laughs] In the back?

TM: Yeah. And stealing some Wonder Bread if we got hungry or something like that.

BF: So, 'cause the trip -- I mean I assume that these lumber camps musta been in Mount Rainier, sorta around Mount Rainier?

TM: Well, they were, uh-huh, not Enumclaw, Enumclaw? Yeah, places like that. And then the oyster camps were down by Olympia --

BF: Oh, Like Aberdeen?

TM: No, not quite that far. It was in the Hood Canal area.

BF: Oh.

TM: So they were two, three hours away so it was an all day. And I, if I remember right we probably came home very late, because -- but I just remember a couple of those trips. And, or, other people would come up to me and say, "Well, I remember your dad used to come and you were in the back," or something like that. So you kind of vaguely remember, and yet it's reinforced by people telling you that's what happened I guess.

BF: Right. Right. Now I understand you also played a big part in helping him to actually make the satsumaage and kamaboko in the evenings.

TM: Well, right after the world, world war, we came out of Tule Lake, he worked briefly for either Main Fish or Mutual Fish. And then 1946 he started, or purchased the small grocery store. And the back of this grocery store he converted it into a kitchen to make satsumaage and kamaboko and that's when I started. So I was eight or nine, and right after going to Bailey Gatzert, either after school or weekends I used to help him make kamaboko and satsumaage.

BF: I see. So that's, that's a bit ahead of time, I mean a bit forward in time when you were older?

TM: Yeah.

<End Segment 2> - Copyright © 1999 Densho. All Rights Reserved.