EDITED DRAFT

Sakaeru "Grace" [nee Susumi] Suyematsu

Audiotape

[This is an interview with Grace [nee Susumi] Suyematsu on October 20, 2005. The
interviewer is Judy Bentley. The transcriber is Philippa Nye]

JB: Can you tell me about your name and how it is pronounced?

GS: My name is pronounced "Sa kah ER ru." It is a very old Japanese name. My father
was an older gentleman and he added the "ru" to the name because it was supposed to
add extra meaning to the definition of the name; however, I don’t know what the name
means.

JB: Where did the Grace come from?

GS: My brother gave me the name Grace as an English name because so many people
mispronounced my first name. Most people didn’t know how to pronounce my name,
including myself. Actually Gloria is the interpretation of my first name Sakaeru and
Grace is the second definition of my name so it is pretty much like "Grace Grace," or
"Gloria Grace."

JB: You attended Cooper School from 1938 to 1942, kindergarten to third grade. Can
you tell me how your family happened to be living around Cooper?

GS: My parents who were immigrants from Japan had started a cafeteria, a restaurant
down on Holgate St. Unfortunately it caught fire one day and they lost their business so
they decided to start this florist shop because they had to do something to make a living:
so that was how we ended up at this building, which was already a store, I guess, and
they converted it into a florist shop as well as a little store where you could buy candy
and ice cream and cigarettes and tobacco and a few other things. It was located at 2371
W. Spokane St. in West Seattle.

JB: Did they rent the store or did they own it?

GS: The store was owned by the Bethlehem Steel Company and it was on the Bethlehem
Steel property.

JB: And where did you live?

GS: We lived in the back of the florist shop.

JB: Can you tell me a little about the flower business, where the flowers came from?

GS: My parents had some very good friends from Japan, also Japanese, that had a
greenhouse in West Seattle, so they bought plants and flowers from them as well as going
to the wholesale florists in town to buy cut flowers and plants for the store.

JB: Who were their customers?

GS: Their customers were anyone who happened to drive by on that very busy West
Spokane Highway heading from west to east towards town because we were on the south
side of Spokane St.

JB: And you mentioned that the name was "Highway Florists"?

GS: Yes, Highway Florists was the name of the store.

JB: And it was named that because Spokane Street was a highway?

GS: Correct. I don’t know if my father picked that name. He probably did, and put a big
sign up with Highway Florist on it so people could see it as they drove by, and of course
it had big windows in the front so you could see the store as you were driving by, and you
could park right in front of the store, which was good.

JB: What was the neighborhood around the store like?

GS: It had a few businesses going toward the east from our store. There were a few
businesses there, and there was a gas station on either side of the florist shop. Further
down there were some other businesses, and then going on down to the far corner of
Spokane St. and I believe Delridge Way there was an apartment building and on the main
floor was a tavern and on the second floor up was an apartment, but I don’t remember the
name.

JB: And who else was in your family? Did you have brothers and sisters?

GS: I had a brother who is now deceased. His name was Arthur. He was nine years
older than me. And a sister named Lillian who was three years older than myself and she
has also passed on.

JB: Did you play with other children in the neighborhood?

GS: I had several good friends. In particular I had one who I thought was my best friend
in grade school. When Pearl Harbor was bombed, when I went to school the next day, I
had rocks thrown at me by her, which I am sure was instigated by her parents hating the
Japanese who had bombed Pearl Harbor.

JB: Where did the rock throwing occur?

GS: The rock throwing happened on the school playground.

JB: During recess?

GS: Before class. It was mainly before class and after classes.

JB: The bombing was on a Sunday, I believe, so when you got there on Monday?

GS: That was probably when it happened. It was a total surprise. I didn’t expect that to
happen to me.

JB: You had heard about the attack?

GS: Yes, of course.

JB: But you didn’t expect…

GS: Well, I thought she was my friend, and…. I am sure she didn’t know any different, it
had to have been influenced by her parents.

JB: What grade were you in at that time?

GS: Third Grade.

JB: Were you the only Japanese American family in the neighborhood?

GS: We were the only ones, my sister and I were the only Japanese [-American]
attending Frank B. Cooper at the time.

JB: Tell me a little more about Cooper, then. What was your experience like at Cooper
before the attack?

GS: I don’t really remember too much about the school. I can remember annually we
had the Maypole, we did the Maypole dance. I do remember having one teacher in the
third grade who made me stand up in front of the class and she struck me, hit my ankles
because I didn’t know how to spell "purple." I think I left the "R" out of it, and I didn’t
really know what the color of purple was, so I was disciplined with this ruler and that was
one of the ways that this teacher in particular disciplined children.

JB: She had done that in the past?

GS: I had seen her do it to one other person and never expected it to happen to me.

JB: I see.
GS: It was not a very pleasant memory. That is the main thing I remember about Frank
B. Cooper School, is that I hated it, because I didn’t like that teacher. But overall, I think
the other teachers if I recall correctly were very nice. And they did give me, in one
classroom, I can’t remember which one, it seemed like it was the music class, they all
wrote farewell, goodbye notes and gave them to me, which I thought was a very
memorable thing.

JB: So they knew you were leaving for Minidoka?

GS: Cause we had like about three to five days. [I didn’t know where; I just knew it was
some kind of prison (camp).] We didn’t have much time, much notice to have to leave. I
do remember the FBI man coming to check to make sure we didn’t have anything that
[was Japanese, knives, books, etc.] To make sure we weren’t spies, I guess, or doing
something for Japan. And I do remember my father: in the basement he had a record
player turntable and he loved music, and I remember seeing him sitting in a chair and
breaking all these records in half because they would be confiscated anyway. We
weren’t supposed to have them.

JB: Were they Japanese music?

GS: It was Japanese music. I remember that very clearly.

JB: But was your family, did your family leave together? Your father wasn’t arrested by
the FBI?

GS: No. Fortunately he wasn’t. But I guess there were quite a number of fathers in
particular who were held back or taken to another place and questioned, but fortunately
my father wasn’t.

JB: So you left in December, then?

GS: You know I don’t know when we left. [I checked on the actual date; it was May 16,
1942.] It is too bad my brother isn’t with us, he would certainly remember.

JB: So you mentioned what happened at school after the attack and you mentioned the
FBI men coming. And then later you left for the camp. Did you remember anything else
about leaving for the camp?

GS: Well I do remember that we could just bring what we could carry, like one suitcase
apiece [+blankets] for each member of the family. And we did go to the temporary
internment camp at Puyallup, Washington and we were put into the horse stalls. The
horse stalls were swept out and that’s where we slept. We had to stuff our own
mattresses with the horse straw. So the stalls had a scent of straw and animals (laughs).
And it was very rainy so it had to be in the wintertime. And you couldn’t walk to the
mess halls, which were at the end of each of the rows, where they fed us and where there
were the restrooms. So they had to put boards all the way down the length of the stalls in
order for us to be able to get to the mess halls and the restrooms. And we also had to
wear boots because it was so bad. We were there six months and then we left there by
bus and then by train to Minidoka, Idaho to the more permanent internment camp.

JB: Besides the notes that the students wrote in one class, did your friends know you
were leaving?

GS: Not really because it happened very quickly. I remember there was this one friend
who used to walk me to school that lived on the other side of the street from me, across
the street from me on Spokane St., and he said to me, "I’ll see you tomorrow for school."
And I do remember saying to him "No, you won’t, because I’m going to a prison camp
because of the Pearl Harbor bombing." So, the kids were young, too, so unless their
parents had discussed it, they wouldn’t have been aware that we would have to leave.
Especially since my sister and I were the only two Japanese [-Americans] at Cooper
School at the time.

JB: Did you have any other bad experiences besides the rock throwing?

GS: No I think that was the worst one. The teachers, and/or the principal, after that
happened were escorting us to and from school everyday.

JB: A different person each day?

GS: I just remember we were being escorted for safety because after the rock throwing it
was too dangerous for us to walk by ourselves.

JB: Before you left school, did anything else happen?

GS: One of the things I will never forget is that my mother had sewn me a new coat, it
was purple and I loved it, and she cut up an old fur collar from one of her old coats and I
wore it to school, and because of the Pearl Harbor bombing the coat was removed from
my locker. I couldn’t find it, and when it was found it was cut up so it wasn’t wearable.
That was really a heartbreaker because we didn’t have much money and it cost my
parents some money even to buy the material to make the coat for me.

JB: When did you come back from Minidoka?

GS: It was in 1945. Our family and quite a number of families who no longer had any
place to return to, most of us were sent to the Renton Highlands housing project. That
project was there for the people during the war and the project was still there and that’s
where they sent our family to. So there we attended the Renton High School and so did
all the other Japanese Americans that ended up at the Renton housing project.

JB: So you didn’t come back to the floristry shop?

GS: No, I don’t think it was even there any more. It was torn down and the property was
all fenced in and became part of the storage for Bethlehem Steel, the coal fields.

JB: There were coal fields all around close to the store?

GS: Well, you walked across a coal field when you walked across their property.. We
would cut across it to get to the street to go to school.

JB: Were your shoes covered in coal dust?

GS: No, it wasn’t that kind of coal field.

JB: You said you and your sister were the only Japanese Americans at Cooper. Were
there other Japanese Americans in the larger neighborhood that you played with as
children?

GS: There was just one other gal who was even close to our age and she lived up a ways
from us on Avalon or Admiral Way. Oh, there was one gal she was a Japanese
American, but there were very few that were close by to us. And of course we didn’t
have a car, until my brother graduated from high school and then we lost that. He had
just gotten it when the war broke out and then it had to be returned almost immediately to
the dealer when we went to the internment camp.

JB: Do you remember what kind of car it was?

GS: It was a 1937 four-door beige Plymouth. I remember that I was so proud of the fact
that we had a car and it was such a nice looking car. And I’m sure that my family was
really proud of having a son who could drive a car and take care of more things from
having the car.

JB: You were able to return it to the dealer?

GS: I don’t know, I would assume that’s what happened. I was nine years younger than
my brother so I don’t know. All I know is that the car was there, the garage was put up.
The nails weren’t even pounded in the inside of the garage when it had to be returned
because we had to leave.

JB: Did you know anything about your brother’s experience at Cooper?

GS: No, never….because of our age difference, we never talked about it. He was nine
years older, he was almost out of high school when I was in grade school.

JB: And your sister Lillian, she was closer to you in age?

GS: She was [three] years older. We would walk together to school and before I went to
grade school I would always wait for her to come home from school because she was the
only playmate I had.

JB: Do you know anything about her thoughts or feelings about Cooper, about the bad
experience?

GS: I don’t know, I don’t think we talked about it. I just know that she and I were
escorted together to and from school. I don’t think we ever talked about anything that
happened to her.

JB: When you started school it was still during the Depression. You mentioned the
family not having much money. Were there hard times in the neighborhood as a whole,
do you remember other people having a hard time as well?

GS: Well, I do remember every so often I would see someone peeking into our garbage
can, but we never had any food in there, just some old flowers and plants that we could
no longer sell; we were barely surviving ourselves. In those days there was no Social
Security, you either made your own money or you starved. I do remember my father and
I would go and help him pick blackberries because there was a huge blackberry patch on
the coal field that belonged to Bethlehem Steel Company. We would pick blackberries
and we would have fresh berries with ice cream, which was a real treat, and my father
would make blackberry jelly and that was a real treat. My father had a heart attack when I
was three years old, and so he couldn’t work very hard. My mother became more of the
main supporter and running the store. And my father would go fishing just for relaxation.
And this was before I was in grade school. He would take me with him and we would
fish for shiners, which I hated, but it was food. It was so bony, but it was our protein. We
would fish for shiners and perch and that would be our dinner.

JB: Where did you fish from?

GS: I think it was called Harbor Island, and there were railroad tracks there, and we
would fish off the sides of the railroad tracks.

JB: Can you tell me what you did for fun in the neighborhood?

GS: Well, there wasn’t all that much to do and we didn’t have any money to go to the
movies like a lot of kids could, so every year we would go pick hazelnuts. It was on a
hill, either along Alki Avenue, I think it was Alki, near the shore. I had a good friend, her
name was Gracie, and we would go pick hazelnuts. And other times we would get
together at the coal chutes at the end of Spokane Street and I think, Avalon Way. If the
coal chutes were empty, we would take cardboard boxes, and we would slide down the
chutes and we had great fun. We had to watch for the coal trucks in case they were
coming to fill the bins. That was a lot of fun. I guess our parents didn’t know we did
that. We must have been pretty dirty when we got home!

JB: Did you ever play in Longfellow Creek or around the water?

GS: I don’t know where Longfellow Creek is.

JB: It runs into that pond by the steel mill.

GS: Oh, that’s the one we used to wade in, that dirty little pond. It was actually right
behind our [store]. But I didn’t know that it was part of the creek. We did go to the park,
across from the Cooper School on weekends, to teeter-totter, swing, use the slide. And I
did get hit on the head one day, rushing to get a swing that was open [available], and
managed to split my head open. I remember two people from the park walking me home
and I was bleeding. And I had a new dress on that my mother had made me. So that was
a bad experience.

JB: Did you have stitches?

GS: We couldn’t afford them. They stayed while my mother put a wash pan out, and
then warmed water because we didn’t have hot water in the house, we had to boil water.
They stayed while my father washed my head out to make sure it was OK because we
couldn’t afford to go to the doctor. So to this day I have a scar on my head.

JB: What about church, or religion?

GS: My parents sent my sister and me and probably my brother, too, to the Mayflower
Congregational Church, and I don’t remember the name of the street but it was not too
far.

JB: Andover and 23rd.

GS: I just knew how to get there. We walked. It wasn’t too far from the florist shop. We
went every Sunday, and my mother would give my sister and me a penny each for a
donation.

JB: Was Delridge Way a busy street at that time; did you have to cross it to get there?

GS: It wasn’t that busy, but it was across the street from Delridge Way.

JB: Any other memories of Cooper School or the neighborhood?

GS: I remember my sister and I we used to be together and would walk under the
Spokane Viaduct. I think that’s where we were, where the streetcar went up the hill, and
we would collect beer cans. I don’t remember if we got half a penny apiece or what we
got for them. But the owner of the tavern on the corner of Delridge Way and Spokane
Street was nice enough to let us come in and he would buy the beer cans from us. So if
we were lucky enough to collect a nickel, we didn’t spend it in our candy shop; we would
go up to the drug store where they have these showcases of all these single, individual
pieces of candy that you could buy with what few pennies we managed to collect from
the beer cans.

JB: Where was that drug store?

GS: I think it was Delridge Way towards Cooper, on the right hand side. I think it is still
there.

JB: The drug store you are talking about is, I’m looking at a picture of the Holleman
Building, a red and white grocery store and you say the drug store was in that same
building.

GS: Right next to it.

JB: North of it?

GS: Correct. Are they still there?

JB: No, there is a little shopping area there. There is a tavern. These three buildings we
are looking at, Youngstown Tavern and two buildings on either side, that building is still
there.

GS: And in the interview I had mentioned the Eagle Tavern which was across from the
florist shop on the other side of the highway. The reason that I know that is that there’s a
restaurant there.

JB: The Chelan Café.

GS: And I went there to eat recently so I know it is still there.

JB: And that is where the Eagle Tavern was.

GS: Right next to it, yes.

JB: Well, thank you very much.

END OF INTERVIEW