<Begin Segment 25>

BK: I'd like to go back to the community involvement. But before that, your husband, Chick, came back to the Seattle area, then, in the latter part of 1947. Is that correct?

SU: November.

BK: November. Okay. And then, did he go back into the boys' club kind of involvement?

SU: Oh, no, no. He always wanted an ice creamery. So we negotiated with the person who already had an ice creamery on the ground floor of the Bush Hotel. We bought him out, got into debt. You come back with practically nothing. And from 1947 'til 1960, we had Chick's ice creamery. What a terrible job.

BK: In what way?

SU: You had to be on your feet all the time. Not only that, I had two children after that. And can you imagine having to work 'til the day you have to go to the hospital? And then we had hired young people to help us. I told them, be sure to stay with us 'til I'm able to come back to work. But, I don't know what happened, but twice we had people leave us, and I had to go back to work before I could barely walk, it seemed like. So...

BK: The ice creamery, being on Jackson Street, probably was the hub, it was a meeting place?

SU: Oh, yes.

BK: Can you tell us more about that time?

SU: So many people would come through the door. They'd been living in Chicago or in, somewhere in New York. And they would meet these friends at our place. Well, I remember, one of my girlfriends said, "Oh, you're so lucky. You work in a place where you meet so many people." I said, "I may be lucky meeting people, but you don't know what kind of work that is." Because an ice creamery, if the weather's good, fine, the business is good. But at the same time, your machine breaks down, because your machine's been working all the time. It was just a losing battle. And then we worked 'til almost midnight. We had lunch, and then light snacks, and then ice cream, coffee, dessert. But anyway, we used to stay open 'til almost midnight. But cut that out, so...

BK: So that was long hours, hard work, but --

SU: And new babies along the way.

BK: Yes, right.

SU: But it's a good thing we were young. We could do it.

BK: That's right.

SU: Can't think of doing it now.

BK: That's right.

<End Segment 25> - Copyright © 1998 Densho. All Rights Reserved.