<Begin Segment 18>

AI: Well, so when... what year did you graduate, then, from high school?

EH: '41.

AI: 1941.

EH: '41, (yes). And as far as the future goes, I think by the time I, I wanted to go to college, so I wasn't going to go to work right away, though there were no work opportunities outside being domestic help and that, out of necessity, we were willing to do, summertime and that kind of thing.

AI: And so what did you do that summer after, after graduating from high school?

EH: After high school? I, well, you know, I went, I did some domestic work, and, and fortunately I was very close to the junior college, so I stayed there. And I was... right straight through my freshman year, but I, then we, then evacuation came along, and it was a little --

AI: Oh, wait. I don't want to... I, I know, because I remember that you had told me in an early, earlier conversation that there were some significant things that happened during that year, 1941, when you were becoming more independent, because you were living away from home --

EH: Uh-huh.

AI: -- you were boarding where you were working in the home.

EH: Uh-huh.

AI: And you were going to school, and then... and I wanted to ask you a little bit also if you were, you were... you had been so active in your high school years. Were you able to continue any kinds of activities while you were working that summer? Were you --

EH: No. I think the only thing we did continue was Christian Endeavor or the youth groups.

AI: Uh-huh.

EH: And one of the funny things that happened as far as YWCA goes, we wanted to have conferences or exchange programs, not so much in the mixed group, but every major city had YWCA Girl Reserve group, and we wanted to do this with Berkeley and we had to raise funds if we were going to do that. You know, transportation and, and lunch and dinner kind of things. So somewhere in my junior, my high school years, we decided to raise funds by making chocolate chip cookies, which were new and exciting. And we could all... I mean, if you were high school, you, everybody could make cookies. So I was president of Girl Reserve that year, and so we made all these plans and everybody committed themselves to making, donating a batch of chocolate chip cookies. And we got waxed paper bags, and I think we put three cookies and sold them for a dime. And we went up and down Nihonmachi and even around the neighborhoods and everybody was just enthralled. There was a Japanese-owned American cleaners across from Lincoln School, and the pair that went there, people kept coming out with more dimes and more dimes and they ran out of cookies and they had to come back. I was manning a, kind of a distribution center at the Baptist church. (Yes), I guess it was right next door. Anyway, it went very successful, and we, we excitedly made plans for the next year to do this. And, and we did invite Berkeley Girl Reserves down to Sacramento. We had, we had it in the new church, the Presbyterian church social hall. And diligently planning the menus and the decor and all, and we just thought then that creamed tuna on toast was going to be an elegant lunch, and we went through all that.

But the, after... let's see, maybe three or four months. We had a very nice Nisei advisor, and three or four months after that, I forgot whether we were called into the YWCA or they came to us, anyway, we were not allowed to do that. And we said, "Why not? It's the only way we could raise funds and everybody loved them." The young Nisei mothers were asking us for the recipes, because it was, that's how new chocolate chip was in 1940, probably. But it was because... they tried to explain to us, and I, I think I probably couldn't accept it, but they were saying that the, "We get a lot of our funds from Community Chest, and the community, the whole community contributes to Community Chest just for programs like us. And we can't go back and ask them again." That was their... and I felt like, we only went to almost all our Japanese friends, and they're not going to mind. I. I had trouble connecting the Girl Reserves with the community chest. I never knew that that kind of support came. So that was one disappointing, but that was a very exciting adventure. It was, it was kind of brazen, probably, but it was a fun thing to do.

AI: Well, before I forget, I was also (going to) ask you, were you ever involved in the Japanese American Citizens League while you were in high school?

EH: No, because that just didn't go on. We barely, we barely heard those words. I think if you were in college or a graduate, you probably would. In fact, I think Henry Tanaka, I think, who was a church member, was president of JACL at one time. What happened was, once Pearl Harbor occurred, the JACL asked those of us that were college age to interview every home in that Nihonmachi area, or probably any Japanese home that we knew of, if they had a spare bedroom that a family could use, because they were expecting a flood from, from the Bay Area or closer along the coast. Because I think we even had a Terminal Island family close by. And... but these Alameda friends, my mother rented a house across the street. Fortunately it was available. And, but we did that. We, we went up and down stairs and, and in our limited Japanese explained that we're going to have to find room for people who are going to be evacuated from, from the seacoast and quickly. So we did, we did that much.

<End Segment 18> - Copyright © 2004 Densho. All Rights Reserved.