<Begin Segment 40>

TI: So then what happened after Oklahoma City?

LW: Then I came back to the hotel again. Then I stayed there for a while, the finally, I thought, well, I better settle down and come back, so I came back to Walnut Grove.

TI: Now, why did you decide to go back to Walnut Grove, I mean, to settle down?

LW: Well, all my friends and everybody was there. There was Japanese family, but it's not that close.

TI: So let's talk about, so you returned to Walnut Grove. This is now over ten years after you had -- well, actually, maybe even longer. Maybe like thirteen, fourteen years after you had left before the war. How had Walnut Grove changed? What was it, what looked different when you first got there?

LW: Well, to me, I was a teenager, so it's different ballgame. But when I came back, I got to stop, settle down, or get married or get a job. So that's the reason I just stayed temporarily there, about six months in Walnut Grove. In the meantime, I had to do something, so I was working out in the farm there.

TI: But before we go there, so think about the Front Town. I mean, how had the Front Town changed before, and then when you returned in terms of the businesses, who was there?

LW: Well, the town itself was not the same, because a lot of people moved out. And all the younger went to college and then they didn't come back, or the family. The only time they come back into town is to see the parents, like New Year's, when they come down or something going on in the church like the bazaars or something like that. They used to come down, I used to see them. But other than that, they went to the big city and they got the job there.

TI: So when I think about the stores, like in Front Town, so like the bathhouse, the grocery stores, the barber shops, were those all Japanese-run?

LW: Yeah. When I came back, we're still, they're all, same people was running it.

TI: And were there some that were different, though?

LW: And some of those families that didn't come back, it was empty. The building was empty. A friend of mine that I know that had a store there, a grocery store, they stayed in Denver.

<End Segment 40> - Copyright (c) 2009 Densho and Preserving California's Japantowns. All Rights Reserved.