<Begin Segment 14>

[Translated from Japanese]

TY: By the way, for four or five months before your husband was arrested, he extended a helping hand to other temple members whose husbands had been arrested. He offered help to those whose husbands had been taken away, didn't he? Do you remember that?

YI: What did he extend?

TY: A helping hand. Help. To help those...

YI: Oh, oh. Let me see. He could not help with those the FBI arrested. There was nothing to do. It was a government order.

TY: But wives were left without husbands. With children.

YI: But most of them returned eventually.

TY: Did he give a service at the temple until he was arrested?

YI: What?

TY: Was there a service at the temple? Reverend Ichikawa.

YI: There was a service.

TY: Just like before?

YI: Uh-huh.

TY: Then what kind of things did he talk about in a sermon? People must have been restless after the war started.

YI: Oh, Reverend Ichikawa. The war started and in the end, Japan lost. He said that we were sorry, but Japan lost.

TY: What did he talk about when the war started?

YI: Huh?

TY: What did he talk about right after the war started?

YI: I wonder what he did when the war started? Anyway, by May everybody had to move out. People brought their belongings to the temple to store. The area behind the temple was full of things. Then the Marine Corps, soldiers who had something to do with the sea, they took that area for housing.

TY: So, as you said earlier, the newly built temple hall was rented out to the Marine Corps.

YI: Yes, they used that place.

TY: When you worked hard to build a new temple and then had to give it away... how did you feel?

YI: We had a wonderful general contractor. He watched the temple for us.

TY: So the Marine Corps moved in to live there.

YI: Huh?

TY: So the Marine Corps moved into the temple. What did they use the temple for?

YI: After the war?

TY: Well, during the war, the Marine Corps borrowed the temple, didn't they?

YI: They used our temple.

TY: Yes. What did they use it for?

YI: Well, I heard that they paid all the rent. The head person who built the temple, a Caucasian person, he took care of it all. He was a really nice person.

TY: Well, everybody had to move out of their homes before they left for Puyallup. I understand those people left their belongings at the temple.

YI: Uh-huh.

TY: What kinds of things did they leave at the temple?

YI: Well, we didn't know what to take. Japanese stores sold goods really cheap saying we would need them at camps. But we actually didn't have to buy those things. We bought a lot of shoelaces. Because some people said we would not have them at camps. Since a lot of people lived in camps, stores sprang up. Those stores sold everything we needed. Even candy.

TY: But you didn't know that before you left, did you?

YI: We stayed in Puyallup for a while and then to Idaho.

TY: To Minidoka. Then...

[Interruption]

<End Segment 14> - Copyright © 1999 Densho. All Rights Reserved.