Kiyo’s story, part 11: 1945

Professor Nimoy, Kiyo’s boss, was Russian Jewish, but had come to the US as a child with his parents. He was a full professor at the University of Chicago and highly respected in his field. He had a wife and three children, two girls and a boy. In exchange for room and board, Kiyo sometimes babysat when the Nimoys went out in the evening.

Because Kiyo had only ever lived with her own family, when she moved in with the Nimoys, she noticed everything that was different. Unlike Bachan, who was easygoing and generous to a fault, Mrs. Nimoy would count the pieces of candy in a candy dish, keeping track of how many pieces went missing and who had eaten them. She put out silver candlesticks for every dinner, but the food was, as Kiyo described a typical meal with wrinkled nose, “weiners and tomato sauce.” When Mr. Nimoy’s mother came for dinner on Sundays, they ate kosher. The Nimoys had a black maid who came every day to clean and do laundry. She had to wash all the children’s clothes in the bathtub and iron the dresses and shirts.

Now that Kiyo did not have to pay rent, she was able to send some money to her parents in Topaz. She occasionally splurged and had lunch at the Crystal Palace ice cream parlor at the Bismarck Hotel. Always interested in fashion, Kiyo came home once with a new hat that she had paid $5.95 for. Mrs. Nimoy took her aside and gave her a lecture about spending too much on clothes. She showed Kiyo her closet and advised her to “wear the same thing, but accessorize.”

Meanwhile, the University of Michigan was ramping up its Japanese language courses for the military, and recruiting Nisei instructors. Kiyo thought of applying, but Professor Nimoy discouraged her by saying that, although the salary was higher, the war would soon end and she would be out of a job.

At the same time, Japanese Americans were slowly beginning to return to the West Coast. The Takahashis left Topaz in September of 1945 and returned to San Francisco. Tom Spilios, their prewar landlord, was glad to have them back and had kept the things they had stored in the basement.

Kiyo’s younger sister Tomi’s letters described the filthy state of Pine (their Victorian flat) when they returned; it had been rented out to itinerant workers from the Midwest while the Takahashis were gone. But they rolled up their sleeves and got busy with the Clorox, feeling that they were lucky to have a place to live; many Japanese-American families were staying in church basements or hostels while looking for jobs and more permanent living quarters. Bachan took in as many friends as possible.

After casting her net far and wide, Tomi, with a glowing recommendation from the Topaz Superintendent of Education, had found a teaching job at a preschool in the city, and she wrote of coming home from work and helping Bachan serve dinner in three shifts. Pine became a halfway house for returnees.  

(Years later, the son of one of the Nisei returnees was planning his wedding and showed the guest list to his mother. She noticed that Kiyo and Tomi were not on the list. “You HAVE to invite Kiyo and Tomi,” she told him. “Our whole family stayed at Pine when we got out of camp!” Kiyo and Tomi were invited.) (And what my mother, Tomi, remembered, was that the groom’s grandmother, on the morning that they were leaving Pine, having found a place to live, washed and folded all six sets of sheets that her family had used.)

Given the chaos in San Francisco, Kiyo remained in Chicago — for the time being. Chicago had been a wonderful adventure — but did she want to stay there? The pull to rejoin her family in San Francisco was strong. By December, she had made her decision: she would go home.

Professor Nimoy was angry about losing his secretary and would not even bid her goodbye. His son Maury, however, gave her a gift. Years later, when he became engaged to be married, he sent Kiyo an announcement.

…And decades after that — seventy years after Kiyo’s year in Chicago — I googled his name (Maury Nimoy is not his real name) and tracked down his current whereabouts and email address. It was an amazing moment. I had grown up with Kiyo’s stories, but to suddenly realize that the characters in her stories really existed! I sent off a brief email, explaining who I was, motivated, I suppose, by a desire to acknowledge a young boy’s gracious gesture so many years before.

He replied within the hour:

I remember Kiyo! She was not only my father’s secretary but became almost a member of our family. I’m glad to know that she is still kicking at 101…

Please give your aunt my best wishes for many years more!

This post was originally published on October 21, 2018.
Image: John Loo. Licensed under cc-by 2.0.