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AI: And so, tell me about December 7, 1941.

HK: I don't know what I was doing. Maybe I was chopping wood. I often had to chop wood, we burned wood in our wood stove, and being December, it's time for chopping wood. And so I think I was chopping wood when I heard it over the radio. And then a neighbor would come by and tell us, and then we had access to the Sacramento Bee, which the boss gave us one day late, so that we could read about in there, too. But on the radio, it was all over the radio. And so yes, what, what to do, what's going to happen? And yeah, we had to consult with our friends and neighbors.

AI: So what was some of the thinking? What was some of the talk about?

HK: Oh, gee. I mean, she would talk with the neighbor, with friends, and I don't know. Just to wait and see what happened. Yeah, we weren't sure.

AI: Did you have a sense that you might have problems as a result of this, the Pearl Harbor?

HK: No, I don't think so. I don't know, we, if things happen, we would, we would deal with it. And so, yeah, we didn't panic, but we talked about it, and there was, as I say, we were planning to move out early, voluntarily, so the friend came by and said that they were going to do this, and if we were to join them, we would have to get a car. So we went out looking for a used car, and bought one. And it was a bigger car, so all four of us could, could travel at one time. And then it turned out we couldn't move, so that we were stuck with a car, and we had to return it. And I took it back to the dealer, and the dealer said, "Well, just leave it, I'll sell it for you." And I didn't quite believe him, because he had sold us the car, said, "Runs like a jackrabbit." [Laughs] Scared jackrabbit. But it ran all right, but it smoked a lot. Lots of exhaust, heavy exhaust. So we had this car and we had to return it, and that was that, and we lost money. We figured, we had paid cash, maybe about seven or eight hundred dollars, and it's another loss. And, but we were now not going on our own, which was kind of scary thing to do, because we didn't know what was out there. And the man who was -- he was not the father of that family, he was the uncle or something, but he was responsible for, for the family, and he was determined to move voluntarily. But he, I guess, needed some support, too, so that he came to ask us. And so we were glad that we weren't going on our own, and that there would be a whole mass of people together with us, and so in that sense, we liked the idea of moving out together.

And then we had to figure out how we're going to dispose of our things, and some things we, we sold, and some things were stolen, and I remember Mom always talking about losing a ring. Yeah, she had left it somewhere while doing the wash, she would do the wash by hand, and some people came by looking for things and saw the ring, and I'm sure, because it wasn't there anymore. And we sold other things cheaply, and got rid of things. But we had moved several times since moving the store, so that we didn't have too much of the store fixtures. We did have some, some old things I wish we had kept, but we had these huge, sword-like knives that my father used to cut the fish. And we buried those in the ranch. About three of 'em, three about this long. [Laughs] And after the war, I tried to look for them, but I couldn't. I've forgotten where, where I had buried them. That's what we did, we burned some books that we had. But otherwise, we didn't have too much furniture. A few things we left, and I guess people used them and then took them, or, they weren't there when we got back. Maybe a Coleman stove that we had left with the boss, they had put in the barn, and they... I think it was in the barn. Anyway, it was there, so we were able to recover it and use it. We used it for a while.

AI: Well, during this time that you were getting ready, when you knew that eventually you were going to be moved out, your father wasn't at home at this time, was he?

HK: No, he wasn't. He was in the hospital. And we would visit him, the car made it possible for us to visit him as a family. So that that was useful in that sense. So we visited him about three or four times before we left. And, and then returned the car. But yeah, we were on our own. Yeah. So we had to get rid of our flock of chickens; we had these beautiful, red New Hampshire or whatever, kind of chickens, that we had raised from day-old chicks. And we bought fifty, and I think about thirty-seven survived. And incubated them with a little lantern to keep the heat, maintain the heat, and they grew and they were huge, beautiful chickens. And we had to slaughter them all, and then Mother made tsukudani, the shoyu and sugar, and then put it in Mason jars. And all that chicken was in about three or four, maybe have five jars, which we put in our duffle bags. And that's another story; my father, to isolate himself, before he went into the hospital, bought a tent, a rather heavy tent, and he, and he built a floor for it, board foundation, and then went out and, near the pasture, and built it. And set up this tent, and he, he stayed there for maybe a month or so. So we were stuck, he went to hospital, he hemorrhaged, so that was good that he, it shocked him into going to the hospital. But when the war came, we were stuck with this tent, you know. And my mother thought that that would make a very good duffle bag, so she cut them and then hand-sewed into three, I think three or four duffle bags, which we took. And that, those bags hold a lot, especially clothing. But we, we stuck the Mason jars of chicken in among the clothing. So that's how we took those things to camp.

AI: And that was in May 1942?

HK: Yes.

AI: And you went to Arboga?

HK: Arboga, yeah. Assembly center. And that's where we ate all the chicken. [Laughs] Because the food was not good at the beginning.

<End Segment 12> - Copyright © 2004 Densho. All Rights Reserved.