<Begin Segment 21>

TI: So after that, you came back to Seattle and what did you do then?

FF: Oh, I was a -- for one year I was on this thing called 52/20. The state of Washington had a bonus bill and they paid all veterans twenty dollars a week for fifty-two weeks. But you had to go down to the, you had to show up in person to get your check at the employment office and tell them that you were at least looking for a job. Of course, all of us, we had some kind of an employment on the side. I worked for, I had a part-time job at a war surplus store, for instance, and we made tarps. And I used to work for a kind of a, irregularly with, with some Niseis who were gardening. Of course, there were lots of those at that time.

EG: Was your family all back?

FF: Yeah, my dad was, and my family was back here.

EG: How were things now, getting started after the war, for your folks?

FF: Oh yeah. Well, I guess the housing was actually very tight. So people were really... staying in the gymnasiums of churches and what have you around town here. My dad, by the time I came home, my dad had an apartment and I stayed with him.

EG: Where was your kid brother?

FF: For a long while he stayed out in Chicago. Yeah, he was out in Chicago and he was working at one of those fancy restaurants up on the north, a fancy hotel on the north side.

EG: And did your sister come back to Seattle?

FF: Yeah, they did, they came back.

EG: So it was your sister and brother-in-law and your dad and you?

FF: Oh, no, my sister and brother-in-law lived apart.

EG: Yeah, but I mean, came back to the hometown?

FF: Yeah, they came back. And my dad eventually went into the real estate business and so he was doing okay.

<End Segment 21> - Copyright © 1997 Densho. All Rights Reserved.