<Begin Segment 12>

AD: What about, now really quickly, can you tell us about when you guys got out of camp, what was it like to adjust back to regular life? What do you remember? Was it difficult?

HT: I don't know. We didn't have much choice, but it wasn't... just blended right in again. Got the first job we can find, and it was fine.

AD: What about going back to Seattle? Because you came to Spokane and then --

HT: And then we went to Seattle.

AD: Was it hard to go back there?

HT: No. And then my girlfriend and I, it wasn't Hideko, not his sister, but my schoolmate, she and I got a job as a housemate, live-in. And so we would go back and forth, so we had lots of fun. The people were nice, both families were nice, so we got to do whatever we wanted to do. I was never treated like a maid.

AD: What about other families that look back...

HT: My brother, both my brothers moved to Cleveland, and my sister was here for a while, and then she moved to Vancouver, so I was the only one here on the West Coast here. She's down in Vancouver, Washington, here. You know, funny, I didn't have an auntie or an uncle or a cousin, and there was just the four of us, four kids, mom and dad, so you would think we would be very, very close. But I got close to his family. We all got closer to the family we married into, each one of us. So hardly ever talked to my brother or sister. Isn't that funny? We went through all evacuation, everything else together. But once we separated, we all went our separate ways, which is not so nice, I don't think. So nice.

AD: Do you think that's at all a reflection of the Japanese community as a whole postwar? People don't move back into the little communities, like in Seattle they don't move back to Japantown, you move out.

HT: Move out. Isn't that what happened?

ET: I think that happens to many minority people. They need each other right at the beginning, but as generation changes, they expand their relationship to completely different areas. And I found Spokane to be extremely attractive for creating a great relationship with people. I got to know the Cole family very well, I got to know Neil Fossey and his family pretty well. And belonged to the different kind of organizations. And yet to maintain my own church connection with Japanese Americans, and we do have Japanese American Citizens League, which I'm not that close, but then yet certain area, I'm serving as like a liaison person for the community and business way with the Japanese Americans. So those intermixes very good in Spokane. Seattle it doesn't work. I went back to Seattle to help some things, and so far, I ran into a real problem because I didn't know the physical makeup of the Japanese community there. I could get along with Department of Commerce or people like that, but really, it's because of, my relationship in Spokane is so much bigger and influential.

AD: Ed, or this is for both of you guys, too, ask questions here, I still want more. What did it... were you glad to get out of camp? What do you remember when you were -- especially for you, Heidi -- when you left camp for --

HT: Well, you don't worry about what's going to happen. Because we just got out of high school, never worked outside or anywhere, and so now we go back into the world, just wondered, "What in the world are we going to do now?" So for a while you wonder, you worry about it. And then like my mom, when she came out, naturally we lived close to the Japanese. It's the second generation that started moving out, isn't that right? The Isseis, the first generation, more or less grouped together. But the second generation moved out, the third is way off somewhere. And like my kids, they can't even speak or understand Japanese even a little bit, huh?

ET: Sometimes they're...

HT: So sad. [Laughs]

ET: There are some wonderful things about being Japanese American. And I don't think I have to teach them, or they have to learn it themselves. But as a whole, you really have a lot of faith in your own relationship with the kids, and whole family and friends and community. I think it was, one of the best things was like she became very busy right at the beginning because we had, immediately had three kids. And she's going to be busy with the kids, she didn't have time to really wonder about what's going to happen. But one day I brought, a friend of mine asked me, says, he wanted to start the business, but he wanted someone, so I asked her and she said, "Yeah, I do know such a person," that's me. First time she wanted to get a job here in town, that is import market, I don't know whether you remember Bob Dewey, and that was her boss. And that's the only one that you really had the business experience with...

HT: Working, that's it.

ET: And she was the vice president.

HT: Dollar quarter an hour. [Laughs] Can you imagine that? Dollar a quarter an hour and I was very happy.

ET: Yeah, well, but then it's a job.

HT: I was with him for twenty-seven years before he closed up. I helped him open it, and then we closed it together. He had other stores, but the main one we closed together and then I quit.

ET: They started with just two to begin with. And five or six stores, three restaurants, and I don't know how many employees, a couple hundred, hundred fifty? Well, anyway, it was a huge business. And when she quit, retired, the whole business retired the same time. [Laughs]

HT: A few years afterwards.

ET: So that's the only job she ever held in Spokane.

AD: That's a long time.

HT: Yes, it's a long time.

AD: Okay. One other detail that you guys talked about, you're going to think this is goofy that I even want it, but you said you drove a truck, and you said something about the fact that it was used as both a garbage truck and...

HT: Oh, that's him. He's the one that...

ET: Okay. The driving, it was a good job as far as I'm concerned. I'll do anything. I will drive truck or a car or anything for people. So I just turned the car that I drove all my former employees' items was just chuck full of this thing in this truck and took it to camp, and I just figured I'm going to throw 'em away. It was a good, good car.

[Interruption]

ET: The camp needed an ambulance, and I said, "Go ahead and use that as an ambulance." Then the next thing you know, that turned into a garbage truck. [Laughs] Here I was driving an ambulance one day and a garbage truck next day, and then finally sold it. Then when I went to Minidoka, they're looking for, again, a volunteer for truck driving, bringing coal. I said, "Sure, I'll do it." [Laughs]

<End Segment 12> - Copyright © 2004 Densho. All Rights Reserved.