<Begin Segment 47>

JA: Can you describe the process of doing laundry?

MH: The laundry, we picked up our laundry and stood in line. And when we got to the laundry tub and we all had our individual scrub boards, the old, cheaper, older ones, and we take it there and stick it in the sink. They got a big cement sink is what they have for individuals. And then we had hot water and cold water running there and so we did our scrubbing there and the next tub we tried to grab as fast as we can to rinse it in the next tub if we can, if nobody's there. And you run for that one and rinse everything there, and then you wring it and bring it home and hang it anywhere you can find a place to hang it. But a lot of people drew a clothesline on the outside of the building between barracks so you could see your laundry hanging. But that's what we do with our clothes, is what we did. Nobody had an iron so we just shook it is all you can do then, until we bought an iron later in life.

[Interruption]

JA: These, these scrub boards --

MH: Yes.

JA: -- that you said everyone had their own scrub boards, were these issued, then, by the camp administration?

MH: Yeah, some of them were issued, but it, they were the, they were wood on the back and metal in the front and then got grates in it and so you scrub on that. And we had to buy our own soap someplace, but that's why they had a place to do our shopping in the middle of the... they called it canteen at that time, and we were able to buy our supplies and different things that we needed. They made sure that there were supplies there for to us buy, is what it was.

<End Segment 47> - Copyright © 1998 Densho. All Rights Reserved.