<Begin Segment 24>

TI: Yeah, I'm thinking back, so it sounds like, in terms of your generation, for the laundry business to end, that proved to be a, in some ways a good thing. People were able to branch out to other things.

LH: Right.

TI: What happened to your husband's father? How was it for him, because this was part of his work also, so what, what did he do?

LH: He just retired. And then my mother-in-law passed away. She was a kind, hard working lady. She never got to go back to Japan, and her sisters were waiting for her, 'cause we had gone back and, and when one of the cousins came to visit, the tears were coming down because he said his mother was waiting for their sister to come home. And then the brother said, "This is the tree she used to climb," and says she got on that horse and buggy and they went to the port. They never saw her again. And we tried to get her there, but it didn't happen. That was the sad part of our lives, not seeing her go back when she could've gone back. And parts of the family said, realized later that she should've gone back, so I always tell my children, you know, if you want to do something good, do it while they're alive. It's not use talking about, "I wish."

TI: How about for you? Is there anything that is still left for you to do, in the same way you say if there's anything that needs to get done do it now? How about for you?

LH: You know, I still wished I'd learned how to ski and dance. [Laughs] I always used to say, in my next life I want to learn how to ski and dance, but I don't think about that anymore, but I did for a long time. But after my husband died, we always, we walked a lot, after we retired we walked every day and we hiked and we traveled a lot, but we, when we walked we always said we did what we wanted to and we were very fortunate and we don't have to say, "I wish we'd done that." We said we did what we wanted to do, as long as the means was there. We didn't do a lot because we didn't have the means, but in the end, because of the way we, we saved and we, the other thing we, I taught my children 'cause they, some of them smoke and most of 'em don't drink, but we said, we don't smoke and we don't drink, so we can use our money for traveling. So we did. We drove by car and we took turns. He trusted my driving, so I'm, I'm a pretty good driver. I'm not afraid to drive anywhere and I still do when I can. I try to tell people, "If you want to do it, do it while you can," especially with people. I, we've stuck by all the people that helped us through the hard times. We had good friends that gave us their children's clothing when we couldn't afford it because we had six children. We had relatives on his mother's side that always gave us their clothes and we had another very dear friend that was my husband's friend from camp. And they did this, the books and toys and clothes, and I always tell my children those are what you call friends, so I stick by, we both did, but I still, I still do what I can for whomever's left.

TI: That's good. So Steve, do you have any final questions?

SF: That's a good ending.

TI: That's an excellent way to end.

LH: And I, I count my blessings every day. Every day, yeah. And I, our time is getting short, so I tell all my friends, and I live at a senior complex now, so I said every minute is precious. Do it.

TI: That's, I think, great advice. Well, Lily, thank you for doing this interview. This was, again, as I mentioned during the break, an excellent interview. I really enjoyed this.

LH: Thank you.

TI: Thank you.

LH: Okay.

SF: Thank you.

<End Segment 24> - Copyright © 2010 Densho. All Rights Reserved.