<Begin Segment 34>

JT: So then when I went on back, I went to Council or Mesa, Idaho, which was where my sister was living because they were working -- her husband was a cook for the apple orchard company that they were, that a lot of Japanese were working there also -- so he was a cook there. And so I went up to visit them for about three or four days or something like that, before I went on to Seattle. And then from there I went back to Seattle. And my folks had moved, about that same time, they had moved from, totally, too, from Denver and went on back to Seattle and they were living with Mits' family. They stayed with Mits' family. The Kainos did, too. So when the Kainos and my folks left Denver, they both went up to Seattle and they were able to stay with Mits' folks on Lucille Street, which is near Columbia Center there, Columbia City, Columbia City I should say, not Columbia Center. But they lived, the Kainos and my mom and dad stayed with the Takahashis for a while until we got back, both of us. And about that time, they were on their way to Petersburg but they just made that a short stopover. And that's when we decided, well, we were going to get married then while they were still there. So that was in the month of June. So they stayed long enough 'til we had the wedding, and then the four of them went back to Petersburg all together.

BK: I see. And you stayed in Seattle...

JT: And I stayed, yes, and I stayed and I lived with Mits' family then until we... for some time. And then worked for the, I went to school, I should say I went to the Seattle School District and applied for a job there and got that job. So I was able to work right away and was a secretary with the Seattle School District. And then my brother had not yet come back from the army, and he did come back a few weeks later, and then he too stopped over. [Laughs] So it was the stopover for everybody. And then I think he went... he got himself, I think he started -- I'm not sure where he lived, I think he lived, oh I know, he stayed down in Seattle and he lived with the family for, after that. He didn't go back to Petersburg. So that's why he was in Seattle, he was working and he was going to Burnley's Art School, that's what he did.

BK: And so you continued then with the Seattle Public Schools?

JT: With the Seattle Public Schools. And I stayed on with them for a short time then, until I started having my family. And then that just was totally out of the picture because I was so ill. [Laughs] I had a bad pregnancy. I mean, it wasn't bad in a sense of being pregnant, but I was just not feeling well all the time, so I just couldn't work any more. And so I decided that I would stay home for a while. And I did until the birth of the first two kids, Steven and then Vicki, and then I went back to work again.

BK: Again with the Seattle Public Schools?

JT: Uh-huh, with the school district again. And so I stayed with them. Mits, when he came back, he had been -- his father was a gardener before the war and everything and so Mits had worked with him for quite some time -- so when Mits came back, he didn't want -- he was not a student, he said, he didn't want to go to school so he went right to work and worked in the gardening business with his father. And that worked out just fine for us, anyway. So that's what he did all of his, the rest of his life and which he is still doing today.

<End Segment 34> - Copyright © 1997 Densho. All Rights Reserved.