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RP: How did your mother's florist shop fare during the Depression years?

MN: Depression? Well, we did all... she had to, she knew how to, how should I say, not skimp but make the best of things, whatever we had. And we did a lot of the work ourselves. And it's amazing, well, I had to, like, we all pitched in and helped after school, my sisters too, she would take, we grew flowers in the back, so she'd take orders from other shops. And I'd get home from school and she'll say, "Oka Florist wants, they want five bunches or five dozen of sweet peas. You got to pick 'em by a certain time 'cause they're gonna come." So we had to get out there. And she had little extra coming in, but we had very good, not real good customers that were, they didn't do a lot of charging. It was all mostly cash and carry, which is nice. But we had nice, steady people that would come all the time, and a lot of 'em were, like you say, chauffeur-driven, and a lot of the people from the movies, design, dress designers. This man, I used to think, gee, but he was such a nice man. They said, "Oh no, he's terrible to work with." But you know Orry Keller, he did a beautiful job designing, and he'd come and he wants this, he wants this, he wants this in the shop, and then he'd buy so much -- he'd walk from the, his home, which was close by -- so then one of the drivers would put 'em in the truck and then take him home, and it was fine. Very, very down to earth people. We had some real nice people. Jergens lotion lady, she was, she used to live up in the hills there and she would come. She was the nicest, you would never know her background. She moved out to Ojai after a while.

RP: So your mom was, was the primary flower designer in the shop?

MN: She was primary designer, and then she hired this man was, who was, he came from Japan and she took him in. He didn't know too much English, so she said, "Well, you go to school at night." But he did some of the design work too, and then my sisters, they pitched in. We all had to learn part, or else we're behind. We have to help each other. Yeah, but she was more the primary design. And at that time we had a lot of people would buy flowers by the bunch, not just one stem, a bunch, and so, but she, and then if she felt that they were good customers she would offer them an extra one or something. This was her way of doing things.

RP: Good businesswoman.

MN: Well, she was a businesswoman. But she had to, she didn't drive, she didn't, she never did learn how to drive. She says no, and pretty soon, she got so mad one time, she said, this was after the war, and she said, she'd call me and she wants me to come now. And I said, "You have to give me fifteen, twenty minutes." [Laughs] She just, pretty soon she says, "I'm gonna drive a car. They have these new cars you just push a button and you can go." I said, "No, it's not that easy." But she managed. She'd, she got the city license. I know she'd take me with her and go on the bus or the red streetcar and go down to the city hall, and she'd get her city license and do all that herself.

RP: Did she also go down to the flower market to pick up flowers on occasion?

MN: Yeah.

RP: Where was that located?

MN: That was like four in the morning.

RP: Four in the morning.

MN: It's down on Seventh and Wall Street. It's changed now. It's still there. That's where, my husband was working there for forty years, out of there. But he had, Fred had, we had a flower shop and this was after war time, he was driving a truck and he would sell out of his truck. In other words, he would start out around here and go into Glendale, Pasadena, end up in Pomona, and then turn around and come back. But we'd go down there and my uncle would be selling wholesale flowers, but she would go down early in the morning and buy things that, to supplement, things that we didn't grow. 'Cause you had to have a nice variety or people don't come.

<End Segment 8> - Copyright &copy; 2011 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.