<Begin Segment 4>

AI: So, so when you left Bellingham, that was in May?

MW: Of '42.

AI: Of '42. And who all went together with you?

MW: My mother and father, and my two brothers and a sister. And then later on, we had a uncle that was in Minidoka. And he had no family. And some way or the other, he showed up at Tule Lake. [Laughs] And he lived with us, so after that, there was seven of us.

AI: So you got on the train in Bellingham, and then what happened? Did you go straight to Tule Lake?

MW: I think, you know we might have even taken a bus from Bellingham. It seems like we got on a train maybe in Everett or somewhere, because there was people there already when we got, got there. Really don't remember that too clearly.

AI: But your family never did go to an assembly center then?

MW: No. We were lucky. We missed the bad part of evacuation.

AI: Then coming into Tule Lake, what's the first thing you remember about it?

MW: Gosh, I don't know. I know it was an awful barren place. And I don't think the towers and the fences really came to my attention until later. And I remember seeing the place we had to live and wondering how we were going to fight in that little room and not kill each other. [Laughs] But we survived. They partitioned off the rooms, and I don't know where they got the wood and stuff, but they had benches and made little tables, and we had fruit crates that they used. And it's amazing what you can do with very little when it's a necessity.

<End Segment 4> - Copyright © 2000 Densho. All Rights Reserved.