<Begin Segment 10>

JS: So can you describe your father, like what he was like, his personality?

DM: It's hard to describe. [Laughs]

JS: He was a good businessman.

DM: Huh?

JS: He was a successful businessman.

DM: He was, until the war broke out. Because I think he paid somewhere around three and a half or four dollars a pair of shoes, which he used to sell for six or seven dollars, right? When the war broke out, this guy came and bought the whole shoe for fifty cents a pair. So he lost what little money he had, he had to pay that off to pay that. So he was broke, more or less. This guy got fifty cents a pair. So I feel sorry for Dad. After all that time working, it got to the point where it could just about start, all the shoe belongs to him. But it didn't work out that way.

JS: So can you describe your mother, what she was like and what she would...

DM: Mother was always quiet, and she never gave us heck. [Laughs] She was a real good mother. Dad was strict, but Mother was real nice.

JS: So she wasn't involved with the shoe business either, your mother?

DM: Oh, no. Especially with seven kids, she...

JS: She was busy taking care of all the children.

DM: She was a good mother.

JS: And was she active, like, at the church or in any of the organizations?

DM: No. She used to go to church, but she was not...

<End Segment 10> - Copyright (c) 2009 Densho and Preserving California's Japantowns. All Rights Reserved.