<Begin Segment 28>

LH: Well, once your father returned to Minidoka and you were reunited with him, what was that like, the sort of the first meeting that you had with him as he came back to camp?

FG: I was real glad to see him because I was, because I was, I don't know. I was the only daughter and for a while I was the only child and my father, I think, he was in a way he was a little partial just because I was a girl. And he and I even before the war, I think I was probably, when I think about it now, I probably was the closest child to him because all my life then he's always depended on me. I mean, the first thing, every time he'd think of anybody to do something, he always called on me so I must have been very strong in his mind. [Laughs] But, anyway, my mother was glad to see him, of course. But my brother was very frightened because he'd never seen this bearded person in his life. My brother was four or five years old, four or five, and he didn't really recognize his father.

LH: He was only about two when your father was taken away so in that three years he just didn't even realize who this person was.

FG: Yeah. It took him a while to kind of... but I remember him crying. And I know that it must have been very hard on my father because then here's his son, his only son, and he kind of shies away and he wouldn't take to him right away for a while. I recognized him because that's my father, but I was a lot older than my brother was. And then my father and I started -- I don't know why, but every time my father went anywhere he always took me. [Laughs] And he started working at the main gate at camp, and it was a good experience. Well, and then he would have night shift and so he would take me because nothing else, right, and he wanted company so I would walk with him all the way across camp and because we were at the very end of the camp. And then I would walk to work with him and then we'd sit there and then when I got there I would draw and read and different things. It was kind of interesting watching the people going in and out. But it was a good, it was good for me because up until then whenever I saw the guards and whenever I saw, the guards always meant guns, it always meant rifles, and I was very frightened of arms. And I still am not comfortable around rifles. But, anyway, the guards by the time, by that time the guards were really very nice. They were human and they used to joke with me and talk with me and then, but... yeah, it was...

LH: So what exactly did your father do at this front gate? What was his job there?

FG: His job was to stamp the passes going in and out, people going in and out of the camp.

LH: So just to double check, make sure they are who they say they are and get them in and out.

FG: I guess. Well, if you have a pass, somebody has to stamp the pass or look at the pass, right, that's what my father did. I mean, why do you have a pass if somebody doesn't have to look at it, right? [Laughs] You have to turn these things in to people so they, my father, so they turned it in to my father and he was a clerk.

LH: And this was really important for you, but you think this was important for you to see the guards as not...

FG: Yes, not as somebody -- it's kind of like thinking of policemen as either people, either positively or negatively of policemen, same thing. They were basically military police, right? Anyway, it kind of changed things in my mind so that was good.

LH: And when exactly did your father return to camp? I don't think we established that. It was 1944, but...

FG: 1944.

LH: But what month?

FG: I don't remember, but it must have been... I don't know. I think maybe late spring, but I don't really remember.

<End Segment 28> - Copyright © 1998 Densho. All Rights Reserved.