<Begin Segment 28>

AI: So was your family, your mother and you and all of your sisters, were you all in the same room at Walerga?

EH: (Yes), (yes). And, and both Walerga and Tule Lake, if you were more than six people, you got a second barrack room.

AI: But you were only six.

EH: But we were six, so we had to share the one room. And there were, there were some comical experiences, because some of the guys that we knew would bring orange crates and, and pieces of lumber. And wood was so precious, and we didn't... I don't think anybody brought tools. I think the, the government or somebody had to come up with some tools, but the guys would come over and quickly hammer hooks and, and make one shelf or hooks that we could at least hang our clothes on. Because you come into a room like that, you know, "Now what do we do?" We'd barely be able to make our beds up, and we didn't have to cope with things like stuffing mattresses with straw like I think part of the Seattle group probably had to do things like that, but we had just canvas cots and... though somewhere I also remember metal, metal cots with thin mattresses, and I think maybe at some point... maybe that was Walerga. Anyway, dust would come in the cracks and I, I don't know that we ever bought a broom, but I now wonder how we got along without a broom.

I don't think we, I don't think they established the co-op store system in Walerga. I don't know. But one of the things that happened was the army made all the menus and the food, and they didn't make the food, the Japanese men who claimed to be cooks made the food, but they followed army orders and recipes. And one day they made jello in aluminum dishpans, and everybody got sick that night. That's a no-no. Now we know better than to make jello in aluminum pans, but that night lights just popped up all over, and there were long lines at the latrines and people were collapsing. And you could only find your way with a flashlight, and you had to find that flashlight before you could jump up, but all of us just streamed out of the barracks in the middle of the night. And, and then the latrines got full, and it was so critical, it was terrible. They had to dig new latrines in places, and they couldn't do that all at one time, and I don't think they had much of heavy equipment that I remember. We... the only electricity we had was just one bulb in the middle of the room, but that diarrhea situation was just critical. It's a wonder that that kind of thing didn't happen. I never read about any kind of epidemic in any of the camps, but it could have easily happened. And I think that's something that they really watched for, critical. I remember visiting the hospital in Tule Lake, and it was always chlorine. I mean, you, you smelled Clorox all the time, because that's all... that was the cheapest thing and that was all they had to mop the floors with.

<End Segment 28> - Copyright © 2004 Densho. All Rights Reserved.