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MN: And you're saying that he was originally a teacher on Maui, and then later on he became a bookkeeper at Onishi store.

KM: Actually, by the time he moved over to being his own business in the hotel, he was the manager of Onishi store, as I understand it. So my upbringing, most of my childhood days were living in the Onishi store. But I think around the time I was starting to go to high school that we started to operate the hotel. Because the hotel was a small family-run hotel, it was about thirteen rooms or fourteen rooms. And we had so-called regular guests. And regular guests were those that... see, Honolulu wholesalers would send their salesmen out to the neighbor islands to take orders once a month. Union supply, Sumida Shoten, Fujijunichi, whole bunch of wholesalers in Honolulu. And then we'd stay one or, at the most one week in the neighbor islands, and so we had a group of wholesale salesmen coming in every month. And Japanese-style, they had three meals a day, and my mother had to cook for all the customers that would stay at the hotel.

MN: And how long would these salesmen stay at the hotel?

KM: Varied. Sometimes one week, sometimes three or four days, and different groups. But at the most, these customers were there about two or two and a half weeks, because they had to come in early and get the orders and come back to Honolulu.

MN: And when you look back, what ethnic backgrounds did these salesmen come from?

KM: Oh, these were all Japanese merchants from Honolulu, all of them. If others came, they didn't stay at our hotel, there were two hotels, not two hotels. Wailuku hotel, in Wailuku there was a hotel called Grand Hotel. That's where most of the Caucasian customers and businesspeople used to stay. And Kaului we had two hotels, our hotel and the hotel right across the street from us called, used to be Tomoeda and then was sold out to Hamada. And so we had two hotels who catered to these wholesale salesmen.

MN: And before your father and mother took over this hotel, who was operating it?

KM: I have absolutely no idea who, it was known as the Kauhuli Hotel at that time. And when we took over, it became known as the Miho Hotel.

MN: I don't know if you know the reason, but why is it that your dad left Onishi Shotai and became the operator of a hotel?

KM: I am not aware of the reason, at my age, I was the youngest in the family at that time. I don't recall any particular reason why he quit Onishi to become owner of the... you know, as I remember, and I didn't realize the significance of this at that time, but just before World War II, I graduated high school in 1940. So around that time, I knew a little bit more about the business of running the hotel and I, in fact, we had a bookkeeper who did all the tax services. But I do recall that to my, not to my surprise, but I didn't realize the significance of this. They owned the building, my parents owned the building. That's what they bought, they bought out the rights to the building from the previous owner. But they were on a month-to-month lease, and I don't know if you can realize the significance of a month-to-month lease in trying to do business at that hotel. But I can understand why a lot of things that I did growing up points to this. I remember as early as I can remember, that I had to deliver all kinds of, those days, basically, was, I think a gallon of sake was what was being delivered to Mr. William Walsh's home prior to every new year. Japanese-style, you're the big boss or whatever, you have to bring gifts, annual end-of-the-year gifts or beginning-of-the-year gifts. Everybody had to listen to whatever orders that came down from the manager of the railroad company and the stevedoring company which was Mr. Walsh.

And to give you an example, when I was working as a movie usher, our manager, Mr. Felix, of the theater, would get completely excited when he was told that Mr. and Mrs. Walsh would come in and take in a movie on a Saturday night. And he would be so uppity and he would get after us ushers, "One of you get out on the road and look down the road," because you could see the whole road where the Walshes lived. "See if they're coming out," and then by that time, we'd get completely nervous. And yet, the theater wasn't owned by Kahului Railroad, it was owned by Consolidated Theaters. But the manager was completely out of his mind when the Walshes would come in to attend a movie. Just the kind of life it was, probably like comparable to the whole plantation life in the south where the boss, the landlord was the absolute boss. Well, Mr. Walsh was the absolute boss of Kahului, and I can't understand if you were doing business, the owner of the land let you do business on a month-to-month lease, how dominant that figure was in your daily life. But that was the system.

<End Segment 3> - Copyright © 2021 Densho. All Rights Reserved.