<Begin Segment 38>

JA: What was the living conditions at Pinedale like?

MH: In Pinedale it was terrible. It was just a thrown together camp, is what it was, and it was all tar paper on the outside and with a little teeny window, you can hardly see the outside. The floor was all tar and it was so hot that when the army cots were put there, it sunk about three inches on the ground, right into it. And then the mats, we had to go out and get straw and fill it with straw, and then put it on our bed. And when you lay on it, the straw is sticking to your body because it's straw. But my son got sick all the time because of the hot weather. He couldn't handle it. He wouldn't eat or anything, so he was all skin and bone by the time we really moved on.

JA: Your son was about a year and a half at that time?

MH: Uh-huh. He was still a baby. We carried him all the way, so...

JA: So this possibly was a reaction, even as an infant, to the stress that he felt of the people around him.

MH: Yeah, that could be.

JA: And how large of a space were you provided?

MH: When we were down there we were... let's see, we were a threesome, so we got into one little room for three people. They had different sizes and my father and them were five, two... seven so they were all in one room, too. They were in their own one room. They were right next to us, but they were in one room. So it was crowded. They had...

JA: Seven in one room.

MH: Yes. They had cots laying all over the place.

JA: Can you give us an approximate size of that room? Would it be like the size of an average living room or a bedroom?

MH: Well, no it wouldn't be as big as this even... about this room maybe, just this size room here. You get five cots laying all over.

JA: So like a ten by twelve room.

MH: Uh-huh, something, yeah, because that's all you need, is just a cot.

JA: But it was almost very next... all lined up next to each other.

MH: Oh, yeah it is. It was next to each other. You can jump on the next door neighbor's bed, and your baggage and everything you put under your bed, your cot or whatever. And miles and miles of line when you go to eat, I just about died. And the menu was something else. It was not made for us to eat. And so, the food was just terrible.

JA: So the diet wasn't what you were accustomed to.

MH: No, no way. Uh-uh.

JA: And what was the results of that?

MH: Well, we figured it must be temporary, we hope, and whatever it is. So that's all we can do is just eat what we felt like eating and that's it.

<End Segment 38> - Copyright © 1998 Densho. All Rights Reserved.