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Memories of railroad workers who stayed at family's prewar hotel in Spokane, Washington

And quite often, the workers would come in, and my mother was the one that was working in the hotel, and my dad was working at Great Northern, so he wasn't home during this period, time element. And the WPA CCC people would come in and give my mother, they used to call her “Mama,” you know, like I used to call my mother. And would give her a big steelhead trout that they somehow captured in the streams that they were working in, in the mountains. And I remember several instances where the steelhead were, it seems to me they were in the eight, ten, twelve pound range. Large trout. And naturally we ate it. They were good enough to remember my mother and I guess we just all got along real well.


families hotels railroads

Date: March 15 & 16, 2006

Location: Washington, US

Interviewer: Megan Asaka

Contributed by: Denshō: The Japanese American Legacy Project.

Interviewee Bio

Nisei male. Born 1923 in Spokane, Washington. Spent childhood in downtown Spokane where parents ran the World Hotel. Father also worked as a mail handler for the Great Northern Railroad. Attended Lewis and Clark High School and Washington State University. During the war remembers seeing train cars pass through Spokane with Japanese Americans headed to Heart Mountain incarceration camp, Wyoming. Drafted into the army in 1944 and served at the Military Intelligence Service Language School in Fort Snelling, Minnesota and Presidio, California. After World War II, worked as a chick sexer in upstate New York and surrounding region for thirty years. Returned to Spokane in the mid-1970s and pursued a career in real estate. Currently lives with wife, Susie, in Spokane and is an active fly fisherman. (March 16, 2006 )

Henry Suto
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An expert researcher and scholar on Japanese immigrant clothing.

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