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MR: You said you were in junior high when the internment came. But before that, your father had passed away; is that right?

MY: Yes. Actually, I was in high school when the war broke out, I was a sophomore. My father died in 1939. And so by then... let's see, he died in 1939. By then, the store was sold, and he was working as a gardener, maintenance gardener. And one day, my sister and I were walking home from school and Dad passed us in the car, and we thought, well, gee, it's so early for him to be coming home. And then when we got home, he was on the floor. He had a stroke, and so my sister, my older sister, called the doctor, and he came right out. And in those days, I guess, they just went to bed. They didn't have the knowledge that they do have now regarding stroke treatment. And so my father was in bed for a long time, several months, and then he finally died. So then, it became necessary for my mother to go to work, and she became a domestic worker. She would go during the days to different homes to clean up or iron and do the laundry, and then she'd come home in the evenings. And we had a friend who was... oh, I imagine he was in his '20s, and he felt very sorry for my mother to take care of three daughters and to be gone all day and to come home late at nights. So he had been working as a bellhop in these fancy places in Las Vegas, and he had saved up his money. So what he did was he took his savings and bought a hotel and asked my mother if she would be a manager for him, and we had our own little apartment then, so that allowed my mother to be home all day so that when we kids came home from school, she would be there, and it worked out very nicely.

MR: That must have been quite a change of pace for your mother from cleaning up to actually managing and taking care of the books.

MY: Yes. But the hotel that we had was it had only about fifteen guest rooms and they were just one room with a lavatory down the hall. It was one of these small hotels that a lot of newly arrived immigrants operate. It was hard for her, but it was basically housekeeping again, and the book work was fairly simple, and there's certainly weren't the forms to fill out then as there are nowadays. But it was very hard for her, and her English language ability was very much limited, but she had to learn as quickly as possible, and she could get by with her ability.

MR: As a young girl, we don't pay that much attention to our mothers sometimes, but did you notice a change in your mother as she was taking on this added responsibility and really taking charge of the family and the hotel?

MY: No. We couldn't see too much difference, but it was difficult for her. When I think about it now, she was only forty-two when she was widowed, and she had the three kids to take care of and to be the breadwinner too, plus the fact that her English was very much limited, so it was very hard for her.

MR: So that was in 1939, '40?

MY: My father died in '39, but it wasn't until '40 that we had the hotel.

<End Segment 5> - Copyright © 2003 Oregon Nikkei Endowment and Densho. All Rights Reserved.