<Begin Segment 18>

KB: And then you, your parents leased Camp Hotel?

SO: Yeah, in '47, I believe. 1947, we leased the Camp Hotel, and we ran the hotel for many years.

KB: And where was that?

SO: Third and Burnside.

KB: So tell me a little bit about how that worked. What were your mom and dad doing at the hotel?

SO: Well, they were the ones that cleaned it and took care of it.

KB: Who did you rent to, do you know?

SO: At first it was a lot of bachelors, I guess, rented it to the bachelors.

KB: And would it be for a week long or a day?

SO: Some were a week, and then mostly daily.

KB: And what did you... did you help at all?

SO: Sorry to say, I didn't. [Laughs]

KB: Did you live there at the same time?

SO: Yeah.

KB: So explain to me what this building look like. Where did you live, what did the rooms look like?

SO: They're just one-bedroom, one room with... they had a sink for water and things, but the bathroom was, it's a two-floor building, so a bathroom on each floor with a tub on each floor.

KB: And where did your family live?

SO: We lived on the second floor. The bottom floor was retail. There was a drugstore underneath.

KB: So you lived up in a room, like somebody could come rent it. Did you have one room, two rooms?

SO: We had about four rooms, 'cause we had a kitchen and another room, and we had two bedrooms. Had a living room and a sitting room.

KB: And so your mom and dad pretty much did all of it?

SO: Yeah.

KB: Did they hire people to help them at all?

SO: No. They did it all themselves.

KB: How long did they have the hotel?

SO: I think about seven years or ten years.

<End Segment 18> - Copyright © 2014 Oregon Nikkei Endowment and Densho. All Rights Reserved.