<Begin Segment 4>

SF: So Joe's Secondhand Store continued up to evacuation? Is that right? Or did...

TS: Yeah, well, it stayed open until the FBI picked him up. And then a government agency put everything in boxes and stored it over the, during the war.

SF: Now did he choose to do that, or did they tell him...

TS: No, I mean, oh, he, there's no choice in the matter. He got picked up. I mean, they went there and grabbed him, and took him to Missoula. Then, in the interim, then somebody came in and boxed up all his stuff and they stored it someplace.

SF: And so you were how old when you were watching this happen?

TS: Well, I wasn't home then. I was working...

SF: On the railroad.

TS: ...on the railroad, yeah.

SF: So he was alone, basically, at that time, right?

TS: Yeah. And when he -- when they picked him up, I guess that was it. [Chuckles] Nobody around. Maybe, I think they locked the door, obviously.

SF: So no one, no family -- or...

TS: No.

SF: ...friends or something tried to intervene.

TS: Yeah. I didn't know until after he got picked up. We used to come back from the railroad and visit our families.

SF: So when the war ended, was he able to get back most of his stuff that the government had picked up?

TS: Yeah. After the war ended. Yeah. He got outta camp, and when the time came where they could come back to Seattle, then, I don't know, somehow they brought the goods back in boxes. And by then he moved across the street to the Panama Hotel site, right above where the drug store is now?

SF: Right.

TS: Yeah. That's where he was. He had the two places. Started up there. And he was a good buyer, so I don't think he got into a lot of that old stuff. He kept going out, buying more stuff. So he's a better buyer than a seller, I think.

SF: So when you heard your dad was being picked up by the FBI, how did you feel about that, or what did you -- what ran through your mind? Here he was, all alone, and you were off someplace else, and they picked him up.

TS: I -- yeah. Well, I heard about it, but I can't recall what my feelings were at that time. You know, the war was on and...

SF: Did you expect that he would be picked up because he was a businessperson or acted in the community or...

TS: I had no idea. I don't think anybody knew.

SF: So there was no...?

TS: There was no word. I mean, they just went and picked up certain people.

SF: So it was -- it was a surprise when he was -- when you found out that he was picked up...

TS: Oh, yeah. Somehow -- I asked around the community several years ago. I said, "How the heck," you know, "they get ..." says -- some older Nisei I asked, he said, "Don't you know?" I says, "No. How'd they get the names?" He -- they said, "Inu." I said, "What do you mean by that, inu? Inu is a dog." He says, "That's what they was." That's what they call stool pigeons -- inu. So there's somebody in the Japanese community that provided the names of people that were in organizations.

SF: What kind of organizations did your dad belong to that might have been suspect or, do you know?

TS: Well, Hinomarukai, which was a Japanese military group here; people that were in the Japanese Army. My dad was in the army, just like he got drafted for a year or something back there. He was a cavalry, cavalryman. That's it. And he belonged to a Japanese Chamber of Commerce. But I don't think -- he was not active. He was not active in the Japanese Chamber of Commerce. He joined because, I guess it was expected. And he joined Hinomarukai because it was expected. And I think maybe went to one meeting or something. But...

SF: So, like with this Japanese veterans group, he didn't -- he wasn't really that active, and he went to...

TS: No, he wasn't. But I guess he was a member of it 'cause FBI had, had all the information.

SF: He never went to these things where the Japanese ships would come into harbor and they would host the crew and things of that sort?

TS: I don't know if he did or not. I do remember, myself, I don't know why I remember this, but from -- God, that was what, pre-school days. Am I supposed to remember things way back?

SF: Sure.

TS: Well, anyway I kinda sort of remember going to a Japanese ship in Portland. And I don't know what the occasion was, but, just kinda, something in the back of my mind.

<End Segment 4> - Copyright © 1998 Densho. All Rights Reserved.