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DG: All right so, yeah, you can tell me about life in Chicago then, after you've left the, Manzanar.

MW: Okay, I was lucky enough to have my sisters there, and my brother, and of course I went to school in Evanston. And after I graduated from Evanston... oh, and graduation with a thousand students and when you go up and get your, they call your name and you go up and get your diploma, all you do is get an empty diploma because they don't know whether you're gonna get the right diploma. No, it's not an empty diploma, it's a diploma with a name in it, but it's not yours. So then you have to go to a room and look for the person who has your diploma, and that took quite a while. But, anyway, that's what happens when you're in a large school and they hadn't organized it any better than that. And so then after I graduated, I moved into Chicago and went to work, and business school at night. So I worked during the day in a business office, and I went to business school at night because I couldn't afford to go to any other school. And so I learned how to become a court reporter. And so I went to stenograph, stenotype school. And so I worked that my whole life, until I quit, until I retired. And, and I worked, I lived at several places in Chicago, and was fortunate because I could go to see my sisters also. And I met some friends that were there from before so I had a very good time there. Until... and then my parents came out in 1945. So, went to meet them and they lived with my sister for a while, Massie, because she had a home. And we, and so I got an apartment with them in the south end of Chicago. And we left that apartment in about two weeks because we could hear these rats running all over the place. And I couldn't sleep all night long, worrying that, that they'd be coming and biting you or something like that, but, you know, you couldn't afford a real nice place, so you'd get these apartments. And then eventually we moved to north Chicago, by Wrigley Field because that's where my brother and his wife lived. And we got an apartment there which was much better. It was one, one-room apartment, so we had a Murphy bed that came down at night. And my dad worked at night, so it worked out fine because he would go off to work and the rest of us would go to sleep, and then he would sleep during the day when we were gone.

And then when my parents left to come back to Bainbridge, they came back with my sister, Sue. And so I don't know what our home condition was like because she was the one that had helped to get it in order so it would be livable. And I know that she did a lot of work and had to re-paint and clean. Because they had, I, I think she said they had animals and chickens, whoever lived there, and so she really had to clean the place. And, and, one of the Moritani boys helped her. And they lived right next door to us... next door is five, five acres, and then the next five acres, you know how that is in the country. But at least she had his help, and so she cleaned up everything. And then my brother came back later because Janice was born, so they, he couldn't come back with them right away. And he came back and got the big truck and, I don't know when he did that, and I don't recall at all, but he took the truck back and he loaded their things up on our big truck that we had for the farm, and they came back. So, I, when I think about it I think Tyke and Chiz both came back to Bainbridge Island with a child in the seat next to them. And all you have is three seats there, so I'm sure that was not easy. And, 'course he would have to drive the truck all the way back. So, that's a long journey. And when I think of those kind of things, I went, "I sure hand it to you for having to do all that." But, you go through all these hardships, and, and you do what you can. So... there isn't anything else you can do, if you, and you can't afford to really have somebody, have a moving van bring you back and take the plane and the train or anything like that. So, I remember that, they came back.

And then I didn't come back... and then Sue came back to Chicago after she got the parents settled, and, and she worked. And then she eventually got married to Robert Yonimitsu. And I made her a wedding gown because by that time she, you know, had spent a lot of money just getting the, the house cleaned up and everything like that on Bainbridge. And then my sister in Minnesota -- and she doesn't remember this, but I remind her -- my sister Kiyo was in Minnesota. And so she sent down the material for me to make the gown. And so Sue says, "Will you please make me my wedding gown?" And I went, "Me?" So we rented a, rented a sewing machine and I made her wedding dress. And, so that's how she got married. And then she, they moved into the apartment that I was in, and that was a one-bedroom apartment, so I slept in the kitchen on a cot. And that's what you did in those days because you couldn't do anything else. And we all went out, we all went out and worked. Bob worked and Sue worked and I worked. And, so that's the way it was. And it was a decent apartment, but small. Except you don't have a bathroom in your apartment, so you, you have a bathroom that you use with three other apartments. So every time you go you clean it well with Clorox and Comet and then you take your bath or your shower or whatever you're gonna do. But that's the way we lived, out in the city. And then, of course, when I came back -- oh, I think I came back about two or three years after my folks had come back, and then I went to work in Seattle and continued going to business school. So, it must have been a couple years, and commuted back and forth.

<End Segment 15> - Copyright © 2006 Densho. All Rights Reserved.