<Begin Segment 19>

RP: Dorothy, tell us what happened to your family in Reno after you came back. Or did they also return to this area?

DI: They, my father came back to Pasadena, and he had to do something, and so he went gardening. Even with his bad arm and at that age, he did a little gardening. And then my mother went out as a domestic worker, my sister worked in a dental office.

RP: They came back right after the war ended?

DI: No, I can't remember how long afterwards they decided to come back.

RP: And they stayed in that area the rest of their lives?

DI: They stayed in Pasadena, yeah. They bought a house in Pasadena on Fair Oaks. And at that age, he decided, well, he had to go to work, so he became a gardener. He had just, he didn't have a pickup, he just loaded his lawnmower and tools on the, I can't remember what kind of car he had, but a regular family car, and did a little gardening. So it was tough for him. That's right, my sister went to business school in Reno. And so she went to work as a, in a dental office.

RP: In Reno.

DI: No, after they came back.

RP: This was the sister that came back from Japan?

DI: No, my sister there stayed back east. But I had a younger sister that never got married, and so she lived with my father. And then she had all kinds of problems -- oh, in Reno, her friends took her ice skating, she had never gone ice skating before, and they took her out there and she broke her leg. I think she broke it in two places, she was in a cast for a long, long time. And eventually, years later, after she moved back, she had to have both legs amputated below the knee. You know, I never realized 'til after she died, I brought her artificial limbs back, and they are heavy. And I don't know how she managed, she lived in a two-story condo. I never realized how heavy they were. She never complained.

<End Segment 19> - Copyright © 2008 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.