<Begin Segment 7>

DG: Okay. Now let's talk about your mother now because she...

NS: She was not content with just the wage from the father, and, of course, we ate fish a lot. [Laughs] Being in the fish market business, why, our main diet was fish, but, 'course, it was varied because we had all kinds of, different kinds of fish. But she had a big power machine and she sewed. She was a seamstress and so she sewed for one of the companies on Jackson Street that made clothes for Japanese women. Japanese women were small at that time and had trouble finding clothes in the American stores -- there were several places where dresses were made to order for the Japanese women, and my mother used to work in one of those stores. As I was growing up, I remember going up and down Jackson Street taking clothes or picking up things.

DG: So then she actually sewed at home.

NS: She sewed at home because she had the children, and I did a lot of the errands, uh-huh.

DG: And you were living where then?

NS: We were living on Thirteenth and Weller. We had -- it was a rented house, but it was a small cottage, but it had a big yard with fruit trees on it. I remember a prune tree and a cherry tree and an apple tree and a big yard so that we could play there, and also, a neighbor across on the back who baked bread. And every time I could smell that fresh bread baking, I'd go sit on her porch. [Laughs]

DG: A hakujin lady?

NS: Yes, to [inaudible] the lady. A hakujin lady. And she would cut a piece off of the fresh bread and put some jam, homemade jam on it and give it to us. Those are some of the happy memories that I have of living there.

<End Segment 7> - Copyright © 1998 Densho. All Rights Reserved.