<Begin Segment 21>

AI: Well, what do you remember about the actual day that you were leaving Seattle to go to Puyallup?

MF: Well, only thing that I remember was that when you got on the train they closed all the blinds and we couldn't see where we were going or anything. And they didn't tell us where we were going or anything.

AI: How did you feel when you had to leave?

MF: We felt kinda blank and when you can't see anything it's terrible. And that was a long ride from here to Idaho. I don't remember what they fed us on the train. It was a rickety rack train. 'Cause I remember when we were in Detroit -- we were in the camp very short time. They thought, they, the War Relocation had a headquarter in Detroit and so we went to Idaho. They had a office there and they said that the best place to go now is in Detroit where his work would be accepted right away and the day we went there, they wanted him to work. So we waited for a couple days and then we were very lucky. There was a lamp factory there and after the -- before the war or after? Well anyways, this lamp factory closed and they made a nine-unit apartment and so we went, they said, "Now you go to Detroit to the war relocation center and they have a house for you." And it wasn't a house, it was a apartment. And this lamp factory was turned into a nine-unit apartment, they wanted a manager there and I was the manager. [Laughs] So my husband went to work and I managed a nine-unit apartment where there's mostly Polish people living. One side was Polish, the other side of the street was Negroes. So we lived on the Polish side.

AI: Well, before talking too much about Detroit, I wanted to back up a little bit because we kind of skipped over the part where you were in Puyallup which is the fairgrounds, the Puyallup fairgrounds, actually.

MF: Yeah.

AI: And I think I remember seeing in some of your papers that it was May 1st that you all arrived in Puyallup and that it was Area A. What do you remember about actually going to the Puyallup fairgrounds, or your impression?

MF: We were not in the fairgrounds. We were in the parking area. Area A. And I never had gone into the regular area, you know, that Puyallup Fair area until David got the measles and we had to go there and we had to live in a, a horse stall. It was all painted white. And sometime it smelled like a horse there. [Laughs]

AI: That sounds terrible.

MF: It was to isolate the patient so all of us had to go. So we were there about two weeks, I guess. And then another section, we had to eat with the tuberculosis people. That was really dangerous, you know. But we tried to sit away from them. And I don't see why they didn't put them in the Firland right away, but they didn't.

AI: In the sanitarium, you mean?

MF: Yeah. Maybe they didn't go to Minidoka. I don't know. But my husband was really cautious about them. He said, "Don't sit close to them."

AI: Well, of course in those days, tuberculosis was very dangerous.

MF: Yeah, and you know, they didn't have any light in the, in our cabin. That's where horses were there. And all they did was paint the little cabin white. And I could still smell that white paint and it was just a small place, it's just for the horse, you know. So it was just a scrimpy place. But we were isolated because he got the measles from a neighbor, a little girl. She had the measles and he was playing with her and he got it. So a truck came and took the three of us out. We were there about two weeks, I guess.

AI: So how was David after, when he got the measles? Was he okay or did he get real sick, or what happened to him?

MF: Well, he got it from a girl and she was there, too, with her parents. And she lived across from us. We were in Area A in the parking section and she was living about three door across the street from us. And we lived on Fifth Avenue. [Laughs] They called it Pioneer Area and then started from One, Two, Three Avenue. We lived on Fifth Avenue. And my brothers and my family lived on Seventh Avenue, I think.

AI: Did David get over the measles okay?

MF: Yeah.

AI: Was he all right?

MF: He got over it. He got it from a girl that lived right across the street and they were playing together and then he got it. She was in there already when we went in.

<End Segment 21> - Copyright © 2002 Densho. All Rights Reserved.