<Begin Segment 7>

LH: So, as a child, do you remember -- excuse me -- do you remember wandering around amongst the goods in the store?

MS: Oh yeah, I was little but I do remember being there. I do also remember that we were broken into because they did it by breaking into our quarters up above the store. They actually bore a hole in the floor and they dropped down into the store, and I don't know when they did that because we were always at one place or the other but apparently --

LH: Your family was living there?

MS: Yes, yes.

LH: People are coming and going.

MS: That's right, but I guess it was, occurred at a time when we were closed or something because I just remember the hurrying and scurrying and everybody, you know, all this bedlam and then they found out that this man had actually made a hole in the floor, corner of the room, and dropped onto the fruits that are piled. I don't what he came --

LH: And what did he try to steal?

MS: I don't know.

LH: Did he steal things?

MS: I don't know, all I know is that they said that dorobo, you know, "robbers," and I never knew exactly what was taken because we were not rich and everything that, any money that was there was always run back into the produce and everything else and so there was very little cash that was available. But...

LH: It's a little unusual that he was able to get in. Was everybody in the family working in the store?

MS: Well, yeah, or we were too young and then we usually either stayed upstairs or down so I can't, to this day, imagine how it was done. But apparently -- and there is this conjecture that it was someone that knew us, you know, a family friend or something, so...

LH: Within the Japanese community?

MS: No, but see, it was a hotel right above us. And there was, at times, when my sister had to go out or something. I mean, you had to give her her break. She had to be -- then we did have this one guy that used to come in and baby-sit, too. And I do remember that. So they all said, well, maybe... but he was such a nice, loving -- he wasn't Japanese, he was a Filipino man.

<End Segment 7> - Copyright © 1997 Densho. All Rights Reserved.