<Begin Segment 18>

AI: So then tell me then about the, leaving Pinedale and going to Tule Lake. Did you have any idea what, where you were going or why or what was gonna happen?

BS: Oh, I just... well, I would hear other people talking. And like our neighbors, she was saying that her family was going to Poston and then I didn't realize that we were just in assembly center at, at the time, but we were all being sent to different places and we were, we were sent to Tule Lake.

AI: And my understanding is that many of the Hood River people all went to Tule Lake at that time.

BS: Uh-huh.

AI: And so, when you got there at Tule Lake, what did you see? What was that like?

BS: Well, it was larger than Pinedale. And I guess we were one of the later ones because my sister, my sister that was married, Dorothy and her husband had arrived earlier. They were in Tule Lake and they were like on the opposite end of the camp. And so, there were, it was a larger camp and there were, we were the last, what I felt were the last arrivals there, so...

AI: And what was your living space like at Tule Lake?

BS: I think we had two rooms, two rooms. So it was my grandfather and then my brothers had one room and then the girls and my parents had the other room. And then we had, we had our meals at the mess hall. And then we had, well, there was community shower, to do the laundry; the laundry tubs were in the same building as the washroom and showers.

AI: So when you first got there, I think all the rooms were pretty bare.

BS: Uh-huh.

AI: What did your family do with these two bare rooms?

BS: I guess we just filled them with beds, with whatever we had. I don't know if we had, I'm not sure if we had to do the same thing, have like army cots and stuff the bedding and then we had a stove. But I think they, they had, half of it was coal or something because they would have to go and get the coal. It would be dumped in the center of the block and they'd have to go and get the coal. I don't think it was wood.

AI: And do you remember, were you nearby other Hood River people there in Tule Lake, or were you scattered around?

BS: We were scattered, but my best friend, Japanese friend, was there. She was in the same block. Oh wait, no, she wasn't in the same block as we were. They were in a different block. I'm thinking, I'm getting confused with Minidoka. They, well, they were mixed here and there. There were Hood River people, and there were, there were some in a couple blocks away.

<End Segment 18> - Copyright © 2003 Densho. All Rights Reserved.