<Begin Segment 8>

VY: Let's see. A couple questions about when your family was in Topaz. Did you all live in the same space?

JF: Yes, we did. We had a double because there were four, well, four of them and then the new baby on the way. Yes, we had a double apartment, I guess, I don't know how you would explain that.

VY: And then did your mom ever talk later about what it was like to have babies in camp? She had three babies in camp.

JF: She did. Well, thirteen months apart, we were all, the three of us were thirteen months apart. So constantly in diapers. But living with her parents, it brought her some security that, extra hands. But I do remember her saying, or writing about, my grandmother would wash our diapers. And my mother was so particular, she would ask my grandmother, "Did you rinse them two or three times? Because you know you have to rinse them two or three times to get them really clean." So I think she was very happy to have her parents there to help her and support her. Because Dad wasn't there. He was out again, he was out working. You know, the first child, she would tell us a story that one of her good friends who was from Alameda, who joined the army, came to see the new baby and brought gifts from wherever he was stationed. And so, I guess those kinds of celebrations continued, people were still, they did the best they could to maintain a normal life. And so, yeah, they took pictures, they had a professional photographer to take photos of babies and children, because we have photos of us, Jo and I, taken individually, sitting on a bench. It was like a photograph that could be taken today of a young child.

VY: You mean this was a photographer in the camp?

JF: Yes, it had to be. Because I've seen other children who've had the same pose, so to speak.

VY: Interesting. Do you know anything about that photographer?

JF: No, I don't.

VY: Interesting. Well, before we leave camp, is there anything else you want to talk about Topaz before we move on to coming back to Alameda?

JF: Just that the friends that my parents made there, I mean, they were, they did the normal Topaz work. We have a photo of my dad with a group of men who were obviously digging a ditch of some kind. And we knew, I could identify folks from friends of our family. And as it turns out, my future husband's father is also in that photo, unbeknownst to those two, that we would eventually be joined as a family through marriage. But Topaz must have been a very small community where people got to know each other to rely on each other. And those same relationships, many of them, when we came back to Alameda, they continued.

VY: Yeah, and I think it's so interesting how the power of these photographs and these materials that you're sort of revisiting now while you're working on this other project, are bringing back these, not even memories, but understandings, of connections.

JF: Absolutely.

VY: Just seeing these photographs of people that you know, but you didn't know they knew each other, necessarily.

JF: Yes, right. I was going through a Topaz reunion booklet that my mother had, and it happened to show folks from Block 13. And there was my mother and several others that we knew previously, before coming to camp. But then there were others that I spotted, were able to spot. That because of camp, our families developed relationships. And some of those relationships still continued, it's amazing.

<End Segment 8> - Copyright © 2022 Densho. All Rights Reserved.