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BF: Yeah, you were too young to do it beforehand. So when, I was -- I want to go back to sort of early, when the business was just getting started, and after your parents got married, and your mother was working in the store, and your father would be doing the deliveries. Now around this time period you -- she had, she started having children?

TM: Uh-huh.

BF: And so how, how -- it's hard for me to, to imagine how that must have been for her to take care of the children and also be working in the store. How did, that work?

TM: Well, I was thinking about that after we talked. You know, my father and my mother always had friends, extended family around them. I remember, I can't remember before the war, but right after the war, when we came back, we were, my father was very fortunate to partner with a fellow Shikoku person and they bought a house. This house that they looked at, lot had two buildings, and my father took the smaller one because the other family, Iwasakis, had more children, older children. Anyway, I remember the small house always had people in and out, friends, or my father's age people. They would always come by. Seemed like they were always there. So I'm guessing that that's probably what happened prior the war too. I'm just guessing that there were just lots of people helping in many ways, both my father's side and my mother's side, friends or family members that came, came by. And I remember primarily my father's side family, as a lot of these people that came from the same area of my father, they were mostly bachelors, so, you know. But a few were married and I still remember some very fond relation with these elderly ladies that just were there when you needed them. So I, I think, probably not untypical, but there was a lot of extended family going around.

BF: And you were saying that your mother -- it was, it was customary for your mother, or the business owners to actually feed the workers.

TM: Oh yeah. We did that. And I'm sure they did that prior to the war, but after the war I remember that was a big job. We all pitched in. But to this day here again, salesmen or people that we knew will say, "Oh, your mother fed me." And there're some students that were at the University of Washington late sixties, or about the sixties, or fifties and when they came from Japan they didn't have much money. Even if they were wealthy in Japan they were limited to how much they could bring. So one friend says, yeah, every time by the end of the month when I didn't have any money and wanted food they came and had dinner and my mother always fed them. So we kept that on for a long time until, I think until we moved to the location at, on King Street. That was nineteen, late '60's or something like that.

BF: Wow. So I have this image of your family house as being sort of always crowded, and people kinda coming and going and always something cooking in the kitchen.

TM: Right. Well but, all this feeding was done at the store.

BF: Ah.

TM: Although our kitchen was like that at home, too. My mother had to keep two kitchens going now that I think about it.

BF: Man. She must have been an amazing person.

TM: We think so. And to this day we have a lot of friends that come by and say, say things that she's done. And she always treated all of us very evenly or equally I think which was amazing.

BF: All seven of you?

TM: Right. Because I thought I should've been well treated... No! [Laughs] No, but she was amazing in that way. And also she always remembers our friends, not by name, but she'll say, "Gee, you must be Mori's friend, or you must be Tomoko's friend or something." She could just relate, maybe not the name but some way she always related. Like if your mother came in she would say, "Oh, you must be Kenzo's friend," or something like that, which amazed me all the time. So she always treated people equally and respected everybody I think, yeah.

BF: I was talking to your sister before this interview, and she says that she -- your mother was, is extremely generous.

TM: Oh, yes.

BF: And just the quiet strength when she would think of both your parents. How else would you describe your mother?

TM: Well, I would also describe her as, I have never heard her say anything bad about anybody. Just never. Almost never. And I have never heard her really gossip about anybody saying things. So she kept pretty much to herself and, I think, looking back, she just thought the best of everybody, and tried not to think the bad things. In that respect, we were trying to get some stories and her reaction and feeling about the relocation camp. And very seldom has she, she said anything. Only one time she kinda said, "You know, if they told us exactly how long we would be there then it would've been okay. But we didn't know if we would be shot, or we would be there the rest of our life." And when you think about that -- I don't know what Japanese word they use for like fuan, which means kind of a lost feeling because they didn't know how long. And it makes sense. Looking back you say, well it was only two years, but when they went in they had no clue as to how long. It, it might've been for the rest of their lives. That's the only thing that she said, so that musta been the foremost concern she had in remembering. But everything else she, that's life and shikata ga nai and all that kind of stuff.

BF: That's interesting.

<End Segment 3> - Copyright © 1999 Densho. All Rights Reserved.