<Begin Segment 26>

AI: Well, did you, while you were in Minidoka, did you hear anything from you father at that time, while he was interned in the other camps?

MF: I think my mother did. But he was one of the first to get out. He was very lucky. And we were so happy to see him coming to Idaho. And then right after Dad came home, we left for Detroit. And we had our car shipped. We had a 1941 Buick and it was almost new, and we loaned it to a hakujin friend. And our minister checked on it and he said, "Gee, that guy is really using your car a lot." He says, "Why don't you bring it to camp?" And so our minister brought the, Reverend Andrews brought the Buick to camp and then we left about a couple months later.

AI: Well, let's see, you had been in camp from the fall of '42 and all the way through 1943 and then it was, it was early '44 that you left. But I want to --

MF: I don't remember when it was when we left for Detroit.

AI: I wanted to ask you about, before Detroit, you had mentioned earlier about your parents' home on Fremont in Seattle, about the tenants. I was wondering, at that time, was, did you have some worry that they weren't paying their rent after a while? That happened --

MF: Yeah. I guess my mom mentioned one time that she wasn't getting the money. But you know, at time, we didn't have a hakujin attorney and I didn't know of anybody, so I don't know what happened, whether she got any money or not. It was only about fifteen or twenty-five dollars a month. But you know how it is, some people just think, well they're in the camp so they don't need the money, so they didn't send it.

AI: So there were --

MF: And my father was in (Missoula) and my mom -- [laughs] -- and the boys were there and my boys were still young yet. Well, she never burdened me with it, but I think that was it, that she wasn't getting any money.

AI: But in the meantime, your father was released to Minidoka and then...

MF: I don't know when my father was released but I know that he was one of the first to be released.

<End Segment 26> - Copyright © 2002 Densho. All Rights Reserved.