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AI: So then, what's the, what's the next memory that you have, probably while you were in Tule Lake?

WW: Tule Lake, the little memories that I do have are usually memories of playing with my friends. We, I remember we used to play Kick the Can quite a bit, in-between the barracks, and things of that nature. Play marbles, I don't know where we did that, we were just out at the campsite today, and pretty sandy there. I don't know how we accomplished that.

AI: Do you recall meals out there?

WW: Meals I don't recall, however, I was told by my mother that when we first got to camp, there were times when I'd just walk out of the mess hall. When I'd look at the meals, I just decided I didn't want to eat it, and so I'd walk out. But other than that, I really don't remember.

AI: Right, so in '42, then, you would have been about seven years old.

WW: Right, right.

AI: And in the... as I understand it, I think it was in the late, later in 1942, that schools were started up in Tule Lake. Do you remember attending school in Tule Lake?

WW: I don't, I don't remember attending in Tule Lake, no. That I don't remember. Once we moved from Tule Lake to Minidoka, though, I do vaguely remember going to school in Minidoka.

AI: Do you remember anything about your class there, or your teacher?

WW: Well, when I was in Minidoka, when I was in fourth grade, which meant I was about nine years old, I do remember my teacher's name was Ms. Ginnup. And she used to teach us art, of course, "art" meaning drawing and coloring with crayon and so forth, but I seemed to enjoy that.

AI: So tell me what else about Minidoka, either that you recall or that your parents told you about life in Minidoka.

WW: Minidoka, there, my recollections there are also of playing, like kids, we used to remember catch grasshoppers, there'd be so many of them, we'd just gather them from the sides of the barracks, the tarpaper barracks. Either that or lizards, we had so many of those. I'm trying to recall other things. Pretty, pretty vague.

AI: Do you remember anything like Christmas in Minidoka, or New Year's in Minidoka?

WW: No, that I don't remember.

AI: And then, so you were there in Minidoka, that probably would have been later in 1943?

WW: Right. We moved to Minidoka, well, we left Tule Lake in September of '43, and then we were in Minidoka until March of 1945.

AI: Oh.

WW: And that's, that's when we left.

AI: Right. And so, so what happened then?

WW: Well, actually, before we as a family left Minidoka, my dad obtained a job in Illinois, in a greenhouse, and after -- well, he was there at one particular greenhouse, and then when he was offered a job at another place, which he did take, he was told that if we as a family came out, we would have living accommodations there, and that's when we moved out to West Chicago.

AI: Oh.

<End Segment 6> - Copyright © 2004 Densho. All Rights Reserved.