<Begin Segment 7>

GS: How was life on Bainbridge Island after the war, compared to before you went to camp?

TS: Well, not much different. I cannot think that... I'm not too sure, but there was not much of a problem, I heard.

GS: And what did you do when you returned? What kind of job or work did you do?

TS: Well, I decided to work in town, in Seattle, but it was kind of difficult for me to travel back and forth. But you might say I have a good friend who said, "If you know a little bit of gardening, why don't you start a business of your own?" So I was talking with a lady up in the Agate Pass area. She said, "Yeah, I need a gardener. Why don't you come and help me?" That's how I started doing it.

GS: And what was the name of that lady?

TS: The lady's name was Mariner. She was a school board member, and she was very helpful for me.

GS: And shortly thereafter, you had another son born?

TS: Yeah, about seven years after the boy was born in Minidoka, the youngest one, I had.

GS: And his name was?

TS: His name was Dwight.

GS: What did your wife do during that time?

TS: Well, she was able to, my youngest boy was able to move around and be, I think was around five years old, four or five years old. She decided to go back and work for a grocery company because she always worked in a grocery store before. So she said, "I think I'll take a job." So she went back to work.

GS: So she worked at Bainbridge Gardens before the war?

TS: She worked for Bainbridge Gardens for years. She more or less managed that place so she went back to work for Anderson Company.

GS: And that was on Winslow Way?

TS: Yeah, Winslow Way. Right.

GS: After Anderson grocery store closed, where did she work?

TS: Yeah, she worked for Town and Country. John Nakata and Mo Nakata boys and Loverich family, started a grocery store, which is now Town and Country.

GS: How do you feel about what happened to you before the war, being sent to a relocation center?

TS: Well, it wasn't a very pleasant thing to be in, but especially, my point, what could I do? Because I was more of an alien, no citizenship, so I wasn't able to become a citizen anyway, so I do what the people, the government had to tell you what to do.

GS: Now you had a brother that was also born in the United States?

TS: He was born in the United States. So he, before the war started, he was drafted in the army. And he served in the European Theater area during the war.

GS: But he wasn't assigned to the 442nd because he was with the regular army.

TS: Yeah, he was with the regular, I guess, infantry, I guess, although he was on a...

GS: He was a paratrooper.

TS: Paratrooper, yeah.

GS: So after the war, he left the service, and...

TS: He was wounded in Europe so he came back and he got back and he moved down to L.A. area where his friend lived and he had a job there.

GS: And you remember when he died?

TS: Well, he died kind of early, you might say. I can't remember the date. He had an accident, industrial accident you might say, so he had a very fatal, he died I think in the '50s.

GS: All right. How long did you work as a landscape gardener?

TS: Well, I worked quite a while. You might say until I was about, you might say about seventy some odd years old. That's when I quit.

GS: And how old are you now at this interview?

TS: Fortunately, I've lived this long. Like I say, I'm today ninety-four years old.

<End Segment 7> - Copyright © 2007 Densho. All Rights Reserved.