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WH: So you have been kind of a historian, keeping things and documenting things for a long time?

DT: Well, that's because, you see, during the evacuation, people lost everything. They burned them, or else was, like I remember helping the evacuees come back to California, they would ask me, they're still in Topaz, Utah, they said, "Please go to our home to check on my property." And I go there, nothing left, the garage is empty, except for snapshots, albums, all over the floor, because people didn't want that. And I saw all that, you see, and I had to write to them in Topaz and tell them. I said, "I'm sorry, but I got to your, that house where you had things stored, that's what happened." But in my case, everything was stored at the government warehouse because the people that rented our home, the couple, had broken in and was selling some things. And we had things stored in the rear bedroom, my fathers, the garage is filled with our store merch-, not merchandise -- we didn't have too much merchandise, but Japanese merchandise wouldn't sell at that, after Pearl Harbor. So we kept them, naturally, we had to keep them. We couldn't get rid of them. And so after the war when we opened, the Japanese merchandise became very valuable, because you didn't have Japanese merchandise, you see. But there were all kinds of stories.

So anyway, this couple, I had rented the house to them, I was desperate to go to Tanforan Racetrack. Now, what are you going to do with the house? And then this couple comes, very well-dressed, they said, "We'll rent it from you. Thirty dollars a month." So we rented the house and they were in there. And the first week, they come to Tanforan with a gallon of hot chicken soup, of all things, as a gift. I said, "Gee, my golly, they came all the way from San Francisco, ten miles." Two weeks later they come in again, and brought something else as a gift. And I said, "Gee, these are nice people," and they'd stand in the grandstand, look at all the barracks and they said, "Gee, I sure feel sorry for you Japanese people." These are nice people. So when the announcement was made that there was a possibility of, "Those of you who have property in the Bay Area to go back there with a guard to inspect it." I said, "Oh, I don't have to go. These are nice people." No, I'd like to eat some chow mein at the King Inn restaurant on Post Street in San Francisco and I signed up. To make the whole story short, when I got there, I found out they had broken in, broken into the back room, they had broken into the basement, they even drove our car to Los Angeles. And I didn't know that 'til later, when I found out they had two adopted young people, and they said, "We drove your car to Los Angeles, all the way." So when I went to see it, it was still jacked up, and I looked at the mileage, and there's two thousand more miles on it. I said, "That's funny. Oh well, maybe I forgot." But then the confession by these two young people who wanted to get out of the, the people, they didn't care for them. So they said, confessed it: "Yeah, we drove the car to Los Angeles and back, two thousand miles."

So all -- so that's why, how we found out, and this couple... so when we found out -- well, the first day when we went there, found out, it was four or five o'clock and have to go back to Tanforan. Guard is with us, so we said, "Oh, have to go back." I couldn't sleep that night, thinking all that happening in our home. So I got in touch with the man in charge of the basic clothing service, I was working, helping, and I told him about it and he said, "You know," he phoned up the camp director. Said, "Davis, don't you think this is a special case?" See, the next day was supposed to go to Utah. "Don't you think this is a special case? You should let Tatsuno go out and check on their property." And so the camp director gave us the permission, so we went out again, and this time I took my younger sister to identify some of the... and when we got there, oh, they were surprised. They didn't think we would come out again, and we almost had a hand-to-hand combat. I was telling her, "Say, this stand, the curtain, that's ours. It was inside." And I drew the curtain and there was a revolver, a gun there. So I took the gun and I was going to give it to the guard, because it was getting hot. And he saw me and he grabbed my hand, and we had a hand-to-hand combat. [Laughs] And they got the gun away and I had to give it to the guard. I said, "You better hang onto this, things are getting too hot." So all kinds of stories like that, you see, that happened. So finally, we couldn't just chase them right out. But oh, they called the army in, Major Sanitelli, came, and then the Federal Reserve Bank came, and we had all kinds of people coming. So by that time they were cowed, and the army put the things back into the back and they sealed it, but they had to still give them one month notice to get out, you see. And so that's what happened. [Laughs] All kinds of stories, you know?

WH: So after they left in a month, were you able to rent it again?

JO: Yeah, so we rented it to a Caleb Foote. He was a conscientious objector, and he was doing work with young people, so he rented it to young people staying at home, and he stayed there, too, with his wife, Hope. Hope Foote. They were here for dinner after the war, and he became a professor at Cal later, but I kind of lost track of him. He was a tall, handsome fellow, a CO, conscientious objector.

<End Segment 2> - Copyright © 2005 Densho and The Japanese American Film Preservation Project. All Rights Reserved.