<Begin Segment 67>

AI: So, May, you recall that as you were on the train, going to Minidoka, you recall actually seeing the scenery outside, and --

MY: Yeah, because it was very strange and foreign-looking, because we'd never been out in the desert before. But I remember wondering where we were going, but I don't know whether I just saw glimpses of it, and Tosh was saying they pulled the blinds down, and I thought, "That's strange." 'Cause I remember seeing the scenery. And then once we got there, of course, as I said, as we got off the -- we got off the train and then we boarded some buses to get to the camps?

TY: I think so, yeah.

MY: As we got off the buses and looked around, we just went, "Whoa."

TY: I remember seeing pictures of --

MY: "Oh, this is the end of the earth."

TY: -- of trucks next to buses. So I was wondering whether, it occurred to me wondering whether they must have just thrown all the luggage on the truck, and then transported us on the bus. I don't know. I really don't remember how we got to the camp.

MY: But we, yeah.

JY: I don't, either. I just remember the time when we were getting off.

AI: What do you remember about getting off?

JY: Well, same kind of description. It just looked so desolate, and everything was just flat, and there was nothing there, and it was just like, literally like a desert to me.

TY: But, the thing about it is, I remember not knowing where in the heck we were going.

MY: Yeah, yeah.

TY: I think somebody might have said, "Minidoka," or something, but at that time, of course, I had no idea where that was. I didn't know whether we were going to Idaho or Montana or wherever. So... and even after we got there, wonder --

MY: Did we know where that was, when we got there?

TY: All I knew, it was in the state of Idaho.

JY: You did know that?

TY: Huh?

JY: You did know that?

TY: Yeah, I remembered -- somebody said we were in Idaho, but where in Idaho I had no -- I didn't know where Twin Falls was, or --

MY: Oh, yeah.

TY: Because the camp was very close to Twin Falls, right?

JY: Uh-huh.

MY: Uh-huh.

TY: I didn't even know where Twin Falls was Idaho. Just geo-, I was completely ignorant about the geography of that area.

MY: And this, and the ground was very, the dust.

TY: Fine dust.

MY: Very, very, very fine sand -- it was sand, but it wasn't like a desert sand. It was very, very fine dust. Because --

JY: It'd go poof, the dust would come up. [Laughs]

MY: The boulders -- you stepped in and you got --

TY: Like smoke.

MY: Your foot just, foot just sank into the dirt, dry dust, because it was very soft, and it had just been bulldozed. I think that the bulldozers came and just cleared --

JY: To build it, yeah.

MY: -- off the sagebrush. And so it was just very puffy. You walked, and every time, every step --

JY: You took one step, and your shoes were all white. [Laughs]

MY: Down to your ankle -- your foot just sank in. So then, that was why I ordered, the first thing I did was order those majorette boots. So you don't get any sand in your, in your shoes. But the dust was all over. And, but once we got into the apart-, into the, into our room, there was just no way you could keep it out of your life. It was just completely -- and it was fine, it was just really like powdered sugar or something. It was just very, very fine dust.

AI: Well now, you started to say "apartment," and the government called your living quarters "apartments."

MY: "Apartment," but ours was a room, yeah, right.

TY: It was a studio apartment. [Laughs]

MY: It was kind of an improvement to that room that we had in Puyallup, I suppose.

AI: But still, there was no running water.

MY: No, not, not in the room. But we did have --

TY: We had a stove.

MY: Yeah.

TY: Now, we didn't, did we have stove in Puyallup? I don't remember seeing, remember a stove in that room.

MY: We didn't need it, 'cause it wasn't cold.

TY: Yeah. I don't remember a stove in the Puyallup fair...

MY: Yeah, I don't, I don't remember needing it, either.

TY: But we did have a stove in one, must have been on one of the walls, alongside the wall, the far end wall, in the middle.

MY: Yeah.

JY: Yeah, I don't remember, I just remember hearing people talking, all the way, the next family --

TY: Well, that's one thing, well, one thing -- going back to Puyallup, one thing that really startled me that first night, and I remember this vividly, too, because the first night we slept there, the walls, it wasn't completely up to the ceiling, it was just wall. And you could hear people talking but at one, that first night I was sleeping, and I heard somebody walking with their slippers. And I thought, I was sure it was in our room, but it was somebody in, some other room. And I thought, "Oh, my gosh." [Laughs]

MY: Yeah.

TY: That kind of scared me. But Puyallup, I mean, the room in Minidoka was enclosed, so --

JY: Not, not to the ceiling, was it?

TY: Yeah, it was.

MY: Yeah, it was, yeah. It was about 20 x 20, or something like that.

JY: Yeah, that was the standard size.

TY: It was, what by 20?

MY: 20 x 20. It was square.

AI: And again -- excuse me, all five of you were all in that room together?

TY: One, yeah.

MY: We all had cots.

<End Segment 67> - Copyright © 2002 Densho. All Rights Reserved.