<Begin Segment 18>

LH: So what do you remember about, after getting ready for evacuation, actually having to go to Puyallup? What do you recall of that day?

FG: Ours was a kind of different situation. We were kind of the tail end of the people going because my brother had, I think it was measles or something, and so we had to wait until he was out of quarantine and then we left. We went to Puyallup on a bus and we got there. And we were in Area A, and Area A today is the parking lot. And the thing that I remember is that we were put into these rooms and they had supplied mattresses that were made out of, they were stuffed with hay. Well, they had stuffed it so hard that I couldn't stay on top of it. I kept rolling off because it was round -- [laughs] -- but that's what I remember about, that was Camp Harmony or Puyallup. And I don't remember some of the things that I've read that has happened in like Manzanar and Tule Lake because I think I was too young. But there were some incidents of, kind of frightening incidents, like I believe we had an incident of one of the people being shot by the guards, but I don't remember too much of that.

[Interruption]

LH: Going back to Puyallup, what else do you remember of it? Do you recall what you did for your life, sort of your day-to-day life, in Puyallup?

FG: What I remember, I remember it was the first time I was ever in a mess line and the facilities were kind of primitive, like a scout camp or something. I guess, it's like the army, but it was like a scout camp. And see... what else do I remember? I don't know. That's about it as far as Camp Harmony is concerned. Then from there we went to Minidoka in Idaho and that took, I think it took the better part of a day. We got on a train and it was very strange to us, because the shades were down, and we weren't, I guess, allowed to see where we were going, what we are passing or anything. And then we had a rest stop. I believe, it was... I don't know. It was somewhere in Idaho. I think it was Boise. And as we got off, there were the military police were guarding us. Couldn't quite understand why, but it was very, it was very frightening to young children because they had these rifles and they were very big. They were tall because they were hakujin, right, and I think they were probably as frightened as we were and it showed, [Laughs] the very sternness. And that was something that was very different.

<End Segment 18> - Copyright © 1998 Densho. All Rights Reserved.