Densho Digital Archive - Art Imagire Interview (denshovh-iart-01-0013)

<Begin Segment 13>

RP: Art, we were talking about how your family adjusted to a new life in Reno. What about, about a church? Did you, did you find a Methodist church in that community?

AI: Yeah in, in Reno we found, we went, I went to the First Methodist Church there in Reno. The pastor had two sons. His name was Busher, I don't know what happened to him. But the son was Fred and -- there's a Fred and a Frederick and I can't remember... Fred was the younger one. We used to, we used to bum around together and go to choir camp and all that sort of thing. And at that time, Harold's Club gave free scholarships to the, to the choir, to the choir camps. And my mother thought that was awful, refusing, I mean accepting money from a gambling place to do churchy kind of things. She thought that was almost sacrilegious. But, the Harold's brothers were quite generous. Every year they gave $4,000 scholarship to every high school in the state of Nevada. Which wasn't many, but was about... there's seventeen, there was seventeen, I think there was seventeen counties and I think there were about eighteen or twenty high schools. And he, you know, back then, $4,000 was a lot of money. I had a, I had a college classmate that was a Harold's Club scholar from the town of Carlin, Nevada. And in, I think... they must have given them the whole $4,000 right in one whack. And he gambled that whole $4,000 away in one year. Oh, I couldn't believe that. But I remember he was struggling to finish college. [Laughs] He gambled it all away.

RP: Art, you mentioned this gentleman, Mr. Ishii? A gentleman who owned a cleaning store in Reno?

AI: Ishii? No, that's, that would be... well, Oshima, Mr. Oshima owned a laundry.

RP: Oh, Mr. Oshima, I'm sorry.

AI: Ishii is the railroad guy.

RP: Okay, Mr. Oshima.

AI: Yeah he... but he had been in Reno for a long time. And, fact is, he was one of my father's drinking buddies. And I don't know whether my father worked at that, his shop or not. But Mr. Oshima eventually sold it to one of my wife's relatives in Carson City's cousin. And he ran it for a while. His name was Fukui and he was a relative of the Carson City family. And he ran that, I think it was a cleaning and a laundry combined. But, oh, there was a family there name of Takeuchi that lived, that lived there originally and had a fish market, the American Fish Market. And he had that for a long time until he finally retired and moved to Reno -- no, moved to the Bay Area somewhere.

RP: Where was the market located in Reno, do you recall?

AI: Market was... I'm thinking around somewhere... I can't recall exactly. Oh, wait a minute. Gosh, was that Sierra Street? About Second and Sierra or something like that? I'm not fully sure of that. It might have been Lake Street which is a couple streets down. But I'm not sure.

RP: So most of the Japanese families in the Reno area were primarily working-class people?

AI: Pretty much, had businesses. There was a, a guy by the name of Fred Aoyama. He was younger than Mr. Oshima. But he had a automotive repair place for a long time. And then his family all moved down to the Bay Area and he eventually followed them there. But he was, he was an old time Reno person. And Mr. Oshima's son became the County... I don't know what exact position, County Engineer or something like that. The City Engineer for long time until he finally passed away. George Oshima. And his wife was Eunice and her maiden name was Nozu, N-O-Z-U, and they... he was an old farmer and he died quite early, right shortly after we arrived, I think. And he was, I think he was a farmer and he had a couple of daughters and a couple of sons and I don't recall what happened to them. But they were one of the existing families in Reno, old Reno family.