Lois

Lois is a new (and likely temporary resident) at Wynwood. After the interview, I realized that nothing had been recorded, and she was nice enough to repeat herself for me.

Enjoy!

--

When I was 14, my family took a road trip to go see Mount Rushmore. This was when it hadn’t been fully carved yet, so it was very interesting to see how they were able to carve those faces into the mountain. On the way back, we turned on the car radio and heard that the President had declared gas rationing because there was war activity over in Europe, so we hurried back and Daddy had to get registered for gas rationing, otherwise he couldn’t buy any gas! Then, along came December 7^th in that same year, 1941, Sunday afternoon. I had just finished Sunday supper and had been excused from the table. I was sitting in the living room knitting a sweater for the war effort, and the President came on and announced that the Japanese had bombed Pearl Harbor, so that was the beginning of more war activity efforts: rationing, food rationing, et cetera. That was quite an education for us.

I met my husband at the Detroit Yacht Club in Belle Isle. He stood out to me because he was such a good dancer. I learned later that he had taken dance lessons as a child to correct an ailment. We got married in 1950 and had two children, Ted and Cindy.

Detroit Yacht Club

Later, I worked in real estate. When Ted and Cindy got into school, I went back to work to help. It was just one of those situations, really, when I just had to pitch in. I made it so that I would get them off to school in the morning, then go off to work. I would make every effort to get home before the children came home from school. As time went on, they were more full-time, so my work started to expand. I got involved with real estate board activities, even though it wasn’t really common work for women at the time. I got elected to some of these activities, which gave me the opportunity to meet some people along the way that gave me the chance to be offered the opportunity to work with Mazda Motor down in Flat Rock, Michigan on finding homes for Japanese families that were coming over to the new Mazda plant being built. It was interesting work, showing the Mazda men the different houses. I worked with a few of the Downriver real estate agents to find housing for around 120 families. We found them housing both Downriver and over in Canton and Plymouth, Michigan. Then the wives came over. They’d been educated in English and had learned a lot about shopping, et cetera. They told me, “Ah now, Lois-san, now you must manage properties.” I tried doing it by helping the wives learn how to change furnace filters, use the garbage disposal and not put the plastic from the fresh fish packages from the market down it because it would clog it. But they were all educated; they were all very polite. It was most enjoyable and rewarding when I had the opportunity. 

My sister and her husband were in the medical field: she was a nurse, and he became a doctor; they moved to Florida where he set up his medical practice. That gave me the opportunity to drive down to Florida to visit them. I was married in 1950 and had two children, so that was a special reason to go down and visit. They had 5 children. That also gave us a chance to go sightseeing as we drove to Florida and back, and sightseeing all around Florida.