<Begin Segment 8>

JK: We'll go back to while you're on the farm preparing to evacuate. What about cars, your cars or trucks or equipment, how did you deal with that?

SI: We had a tractor that wasn't too old that we had bought from Mr. Murahashi, who returned to Japan. And I think somebody wanted to borrow it or buy it or something.

JK: It would be a hakujin?

SI: Yeah, but we never saw it again.

JK: So you had many losses in the preparation, things that were going to be returned or paid back.

SI: Like this brand-new refrigerator, you know.

JK: Right. What things did you take that you carried? 'Cause you had Pat, she was still, was she an infant, a baby, or a toddler?

SI: Oh, my daughter?

JK: Uh-huh.

SI: She was born already, and we had a suitcase, and my daughter, Pat, that lives in Washington now, she told me that she went over there to the legacy center and looked at the stuff, and she said, "Mom," she was here recently for Mother's Day, and she said, "Mom, remember that suitcase you took to camp? I saw that over there."

JK: Oh, isn't that nice, that it's being saved and being part of history?

SI: Yeah.

JK: And that Pat remembered it and recognized it.

SI: And then I had this big house, my husband and I had this big house that we bought on Southeast 24th.

JK: Was this before the war?

SI: Let's see...

JK: Or when you came back after the war?

SI: Oh, it must have been after we came back, yeah.

JK: Afterward.

SI: And a big house, and we were really proud of it. And we needed a big house because it was the old folks, and the three kids, and my husband and me, and then his brother came home from the service and he came to live, so there was eight of us. We needed the big house, so we had that. And then my husband had gone house hunting, and he ran into Rowe Sumida who was selling real estate, and bought the house from him. And we really liked that house, it was so comfortable. And then through the years we made improvements on it. And just this year, maybe two or three months ago, we finally sold that house.

JK: You have lots of memories.

SI: My daughter, oldest daughter in Washington has been selling real estate all this time, so I said, "Why don't you take charge of it? And when we sell, we're gonna split the money," and I was already settled over here, and I had just about everything I needed. And the things in the house, let the kids, everybody come over and put your name on a sticker and stick it on the item that you want. So they did that, they had a potluck dinner and they did that, and no two people wanted the same thing. It was completely furnished, you know, 'cause we had lived in it for fifty-six years. And my daughter's not taking anything, and she said, "Well, I shouldn't do it, should I?" And I said, "Well, sure, you should. You're doing all the work, you decided, I mean, you should get two percent more than everybody else." But anyway, she arranged, and everybody got their stuff, and they didn't pay a penny for it, they all took stuff home. And it made me feel so good because this last Thanksgiving we went to my grandson Scott's place, he's Ron and Marianne's second son. They were using my dining room table and chairs, which cost a couple of thousand dollars. But I gave it to them. There's no point in me holding it, you know, and nobody else wanted it, but he needed it.

JK: And they're going to be using it, and it means something.

SI: They had it for Thanksgiving dinner, and it fit in their house perfect. And I had a big mirror over the fireplace, and they put that mirror on the wall right by this table, beautiful.

JK: So it's nice to see the things that you loved are still being loved by your family.

SI: Yes. I sat in the chair and I just looked around and admired all this stuff. [Laughs]

JK: What a nice feeling.

<End Segment 8> - Copyright © 2014 Oregon Nikkei Endowment and Densho. All Rights Reserved.