<Begin Segment 16>

SS: Somewhere along the way, you and Edith got married.

HW: Yes, I was at Fort Lew-, I mean, Fort Hayes, and she was in Tule Lake and then we got a, we had communications. Incidentally, I asked my family to send me some money so I could get her out of Tule Lake. Sent the money to her, and then she got out of Tule Lake. She was the second person to be allowed to leave Tule Lake, the other was married to a friend of mine who was in the army already. And she came by bus, I think by bus, to Ogden. Then by train to Columbus, Ohio.

SS: That must have been the bright spot in all these years.

HW: It was what you call an almost impossible thing to happen, yes. But the Colonel Young at Fort Hayes, who was the Commandant there -- a quartermaster depot -- and he was very good. He agreed to help, and he and other staff officers and some of their hakujin friends wrote letters to the WRA asking for the release of Edith. And that's how that came about. 'Cause they wound up being military sponsors of her release, in a sense.

SS: That must have been hard hearing from her what the conditions were like, and hearing how sick she was.

HW: Yeah, she wasn't well. Well, she was kinda mixed up. I don't blame her.

SS: What got you through all of this?

HW: Just attending to daily details. Submersing the other thoughts. That it'd be for the best to keep it under control.

<End Segment 16> - Copyright © 1996 Densho. All Rights Reserved.