Densho Digital Archive
Oregon Nikkei Endowment Collection
Title: Alice Matsumoto Ando Interview
Narrator: Alice Matsumoto Ando
Interviewer: Betty Jean Harry
Location: Portland, Oregon
Date: June 13, 2014
Densho ID: denshovh-aalice-01-0002

<Begin Segment 2>

BH: Now, what did your dad do when you were born?

AA: Well, he, actually, when I was born, he was managing the hotel. I think previously he did other things like they went to Canada and worked in the fish (butchery), and I think my mom mentioned picking hops.

BH: Was that in Canada as well?

AA: No, that was in Oregon. That's how they made money.

BH: Probably the Willamette valley, yeah. So tell me about the apartment that your dad managed.

AA: Well, it was a very old apartment. It was named Kamm Apartment, it was three stories, and I heard that it was an old courthouse at one time. It had ceilings that were very, very high, nothing like the ceilings that we have now. And I remember my dad wallpapering the rooms in the hotel. Actually, it's called apartment because people came and stayed, and some of them stayed with us a long time, and some of them stayed just for maybe a week or so. It was nice because we had so much room to run around.

BH: Right. So you had how many rooms in the hotel?

AA: We had actually three rooms. We had a living room, a bedroom, and a kitchen.

BH: So what was it like to grow up there, downtown? But you didn't have a yard to play in.

AA: Yeah, so we played around inside, when it was wet outside, when it rained, we had to play inside out in the hall. I remember having a tricycle and riding it around in the hallway. And when it was nice, we played out in the street, right in front of the apartment.

BH: Did you ever go down to the waterfront, to the Willamette River?

AA: Yes. I remember going down to the waterfront when they had the Rose Festival, and seeing the ships from Japan.

BH: So what kind of a person was your dad? How would you describe his personality?

AA: I think he was, he was pretty easygoing. We were rather spoiled, probably because he was old enough to be our grandparents' age. So whenever we asked for something, we usually got it. And when we were little, he used to buy, actually, he used to buy our clothes, our coats and shoes.

BH: Your dad did that rather than your mom?

AA: Uh-huh, rather than my mom, yeah.

BH: How much of an age difference was there between your mom and your dad?

AA: Well, I figure somewhere between twenty, something like twenty years, at least.

BH: You told me that he was a meticulous dresser.

AA: He was very, very meticulous. He always wore a hat, he always dressed in a suit with a tie, because he had a tie pin. For a Japanese his age... he even wore a ring, which was very unusual, I think. And he used to take us to Newberry's and buy us jewelry from the dime store. I think that's why I like jewelry so much.

BH: And your mom, what kind of a person was she?

AA: Well, she was very quiet, and she had to do all the hard work around the apartment, cleaning the rooms, making the beds. And so it was a lot of hard work for her, but she was very quiet, and she was always there for us.

BH: So she went from working hard on a strawberry farm to working hard in a hotel.

AA: Yeah, but I think she liked that better than being out, you know, being out in the field.

BH: What was the makeup of the tenants who stayed in the hotel?

AA: They were mostly men. They were bachelors or widowers, and so... and they'd come and go, but we had two that we became very fond of, because they were there all the time.

BH: And were these Japanese?

AA: No, they were Caucasian.

BH: And what kind of a relationship did your mom and dad have?

AA: I think they were, despite their age difference, I think they got along pretty well. Dad did the cooking and Mom did the work.

BH: Since your dad was running the apartments, or the hotel...

AA: He was the manager, yeah.

BH: Yeah. Did he speak some English?

AA: He was able to communicate with the tenants, yes. Somehow he managed to learn English, he was even able to read the newspaper.

BH: That's impressive for an Issei. And you have one sister?

AA: Yeah, one sister.

BH: And her name?

AA: Jean.

<End Segment 2> - Copyright © 2014 Oregon Nikkei Endowment and Densho. All Rights Reserved.