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DG: All right, so let's move ahead now, and the war has ended and the camps are closing. What happened at that point with you and Sam and Bruce?

KN: Oh, the camps closing, so we packed up all our things and picked up his mom and dad, because my parents came home first. And when they came home, the renter will not move out. She would just not budge. And, of course, Mom and Dad are not able to speak English well enough to have her move along. So they came home and they lived in the basement and on the, the farmhouse, we had the outdoor access to the basement. So that's where they lived, in the basement, trying to get her out, but she wouldn't budge. So Dad started cooking up lots of stuff, you know, when you cook fish in soy sauce, in those days, nobody liked teriyaki sauce, but now they all love it? Well, they cooked, kept cooking stuff like that all the time, and I guess it got pretty bad. 'Cause you know how all the, everything rises, and she finally left without any problem, no arguments or anything. She says, I think she said, "This is it; can't take it anymore." [Laughs] So no problem.

DG: So, what was the condition of your house and your farm?

KN: Well, the farm was just shot, but it was a different person taking care of the farm, my folks' farm. But Sam's farm, he let the manager know that we were coming back, but he became very difficult about turning it back to us. So we thought, well, instead of having problems, ill feelings and trouble later, let's just sell out. So that's what he did, sold. And we were out of farming -- no more farming. So we came home, we picked up his mom and dad, and the five of us drove home on the car that my brother left us when he went in the service. And then we came home and stayed with my parents until we were able to find a place to buy or rent. And we really looked around a lot, but we couldn't find a place big enough for all of us, you know, Sam and I and Bruce, and then his mother and dad. But eventually we did find a place. Took a lot of patience and looking around.

But in between, in between buying, we heard about a farm that an oral surgeon in Tacoma had, so he wanted somebody to run it. So we went there and it was very nice. It's in Puyallup, on River Road, and we ran, we worked on the farm for a while, from April 'til September, and all of a sudden he notified us he sold the place, just like that. So we had to pack up, come back again to my parents' place. And I don't know how long we were there, but eventually we found a place to rent. So we rented for a while, then we eventually bought a place, where we're living right now.

<End Segment 13> - Copyright © 2006 Densho. All Rights Reserved.