<Begin Segment 62>

AI: First in Area C, and then you were moved to Area D, you were saying?

TY: We were in Area C first, and then we were transferred over to Area D.

MY: That was because you were working in the hospital.

TY: Yeah.

AI: What was your work in the hospital?

TY: Oh, just a male attendant. In fact, several of the people that I worked, started work with, I'm still in contact with them. Henry Itoi's one. But I started working at midnight shift. And I remember, and I worked in the emergency room, and I remember one thing very vividly. There was one lady came in ready to deliver a baby. And I remember being there in the delivery room with the doctor, the nurse, and myself. And that was the most horrible experience I think I've ever had. The sudden exposure to something like that, because all I remember is it being very bloody and very messy, and I was asked to hold the lady's leg, and had to watch the whole procedure. And it was just ghastly, I thought. [Laughs]

JY: And this was just a birth, right? [Laughs]

AI: Yes, and so at this point you were twenty years old, and had not been exposed to this kind of thing before. And what was the hospital like? This was in the fairgrounds, they had constructed some --

TY: Well, it was very barren. It was just very spartan. And another part I remember is carrying bedpans around and things like that. And there were several doctors. Most of the doctors were doctors from Seattle that names I heard of and knew. Several, there were several nurses and then there were several girls who were in training as nurse, and they hadn't gotten their -- what's your nurse's -- RN? Yeah, RN.

MY: Registered nurse.

TY: Yeah, so they had those student nursing, nurse uniform on. I think they outnumbered regular nurses. And there were -- did you work there?

MY: No, not in, I worked in the hospital in Minidoka, yeah.

TY: In Minidoka. Okay. Well, there must have been --

MY: I don't remember how many, yeah.

TY: -- I'd say, twenty young people working, and most of them were nurse's aide and male attendant -- they called us male attendants. And we just, we did things like nurses would do. We took temperatures and took the pulse and blood pressure and things like that.

AI: Were you recruited for this job?

TY: No.

AI: Or were you paid for the job?

MY: You volunteered.

TY: I remember getting paid when we were in Minidoka.

MY: Paid in Minidoka.

TY: But I don't think we got paid when we were in Puyallup.

MY: I don't think that --

TY: I don't remember.

MY: -- that was, that process was in place, yet. Paying people.

TY: Because we were there only about three, four months, I think, before we went to Minidoka. So in the interim, I don't know whether we got paid or not. But I know that we started getting paid when we got to Minidoka.

<End Segment 62> - Copyright © 2002 Densho. All Rights Reserved.