<Begin Segment 49>

JA: And for yourself, your son was now a toddler and off diapers.

MH: Yes, he was.

JA: It must have been very difficult for those going through pregnancy or that had young children.

MH: Oh, yes, I'm sure because we didn't have the first-class doctors there, either, or anything like that, uh-huh. So it was real, real hard for them. That's for sure.

JA: And you had an extended family that could help you with your son.

MH: Yeah. But, see, when I went to Minidoka is where I had Glen, so that was later in life, but they don't even give you... it's a little different. Natural birth almost.

JA: And what was your family doing during, during this time? They had to, they were living next to you, right?

MH: In Minidoka?

JA: No, we're in Tule now.

MH: We're in Tule, oh. We're in Tule. I think, I think my mother... my mother and them were just doing things just regular, what housewives do. And I think she was visiting with others and because a lot of them -- see, the Bellevue people lived in one kind of spot, one area, I call it. So they were able to visit with the Bellevue people and things like that. And one of the batch of Bellevue people were on the other side, they called Alaska, and so they went to visit. So that's quite a hike to get to the other side of camp. So she used to go visit with them and things like that, uh-huh, in Tule.

JA: So was life a little easier for her in camp than on the farm?

MH: Well, yeah, it was a lot easier.

JA: She worked less...

MH: Oh, that's true, too...

JA: Mentally stressful, but physically a little easier.

MH: That's true, too.

JA: Did your father have a job?

MH: Yeah, my father worked in the kitchen. I think that's where he started there. He had to run the boiler, start the boiler up so they can cook in the morning, because they got start cooking rice and everything else during the morning. So he, I think he started boiler is the way I understood it, was that he did.

JA: So basically every able...

MH: Person.

JA: ...bodied man worked.

MH: Did something.

JA: Women too?

MH: Yeah, if they can, if they can. If they're able, they were able to work there and they get paid $10 or something like that. And I think my mother started working when she went to Tule -- I mean Hunt, Minidoka, then she started cooking in the kitchen, is what she did over there.

<End Segment 49> - Copyright © 1998 Densho. All Rights Reserved.