<Begin Segment 59>

JA: Okay. So then, do you have other recollections of Minidoka, of community life in Minidoka?

MH: Minidoka? Minidoka was very... I enjoyed it because I knew so many people there that I was able to go down and visit with them and hear about their experiences, which was a little different from each, each of us. It's a little different again of what they had done because they were from Hunt and then they came... I mean, they came from Puyallup and then they came straight over there. And so, it was a little different experience they had as Seattle people. And so we enjoyed visiting with them and talking to the California people and all the different people from different areas that were all coming into that camp (...) to live. And there it had so many activities going on, and it seemed like anything you want is always at the store, at the canteen if you wanted to go buy it as long as you had the money and the price was right. So the kids had candy if they wanted it, things like that they were able to buy there.

[Interruption]

JA: In Minidoka, what kind of social activities were provided for the younger people?

MH: Young people? Young people they had movies and they had baseball, all kinds of sports to play. And... they had dances and parties and things like for the kids, too, besides grown up people. So they kept them busy with all that type of things, but they always had movies for them, so they enjoyed that, different kind of movies in the cafeteria.

JA: And your husband as being a block manager, this was one of his roles?

MH: At Minidoka he was not a manager, he was just a manager at Tule because he was coming and going so often at Minidoka, he couldn't do that.

JA: Okay. And what did the older adult... what did the Issei do in Minidoka for idle time?

MH: Isseis, they were always going to classes of some nature. They always had classes that they were teaching the older people, different things, even like flower arrangement. They all loved the American-style, Japanese-style, whatever, and all those flower arrangement classes they had. And they were learning shigin, singing, they were learning that, and then a lot of them were involved in churches, too, because we have Buddhist and they had the Christian churches and Catholic churches. So a lot them were working on those kind of committees, too, and things like that, that keep them quite involved. So all in all, their life was pretty busy, I think, filled up by the time they get the laundry done and stand in line for dinner or lunch or whatever. And then, their, and they loved to read, so books were available for them, and so I think their life was very well-filled. And then, of course, they have to sew, too, sometime. No sewing machine, but that's all right, they can sew by hand.

<End Segment 59> - Copyright © 1998 Densho. All Rights Reserved.