<Begin Segment 37>

DG: So then you came back after the war was over or before the war was over? Because you could come back.

FN: Just when this area was open. When, we could go back.

DG: Early in 1945.

FN: '45. Uh-huh. '45. So we were the second family I think that, the Kino, Kinoshitas I think were the first.

DG: Right. Oh, and you were the second family or so.

FN: We were the second family, to...

DG: So what was it like to come back?

FN: Well we just really felt we were, we were coming home, but...

DG: Your house was okay?

FN: Yeah, everything was okay. But on the train coming over. Finally everybody went to the dining room to eat while I just sat with the kids and I thought well we can -- we had a sandwich or something that we could eat and this porter came up to us and said, "Come on and you come with me and I'll take you." And so he took me, took us to the dining room and ordered. I, I can remember, never remember other, I may forget times like that where people go out of their way to be really... he realized maybe I was just feeling that I shouldn't, didn't want to go back to the dining room. And he came and said, "Come on now here, I'll take you over there." And incidents like that, it just gave us a good feeling. And then as I said the Caucasian friends that were in our home, they came to pick us up at the train station. So, and they had vacated the home knowing that we were coming, see. So everything was just all ready for us. So it wasn't bad, it wasn't bad at all coming home. And then --

DG: And so what time of the year was it, so that, did you start up the greenhouse?

FN: So then, then my husband had, we had the truck that we were traveling around in. He loaded it, our household with whatever we had and drove back the next day. So we, he, so I came home with the kids... but... no everything went along fine but when we came home, greenhouses don't last long in the winter if there's no heat inside. So the greenhouse were kind of a mess when we came. But at that time --

DG: Now was your mother-in-law with you all this time?

FN: Yeah, my mother, mother-in-law was with us, still with us. Yeah she was. She passed away here in Seattle.

<End Segment 37> - Copyright © 1998 Densho. All Rights Reserved.