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AI: Well, now tell me, when you then moved to Madison, was that in the fall of --

MH: Okay.

AI: -- 1943?

MH: Uh-huh. Yeah, we came into Madison, yes, in the fall of '43, that's right, yeah.

AI: What were some of your first impressions of Madison?

MH: I'll tell you, we were there less than one week, at which time the pastor of the First United Methodist Church, Ivy Myers, (director) of the Christian Education (...), and one other person came to call on us at our apartment at 908 Jennifer. We didn't know a soul at that point. We just knew our business contact (...). We couldn't understand how they found out about us or where we lived or who we were. We were simply astounded, but we were invited to this church. So we've been members of that church ever since. (...) We thought when we landed in Madison, we'll go church shopping or something like that. We never got a chance. Then we tried to figure out how they would find out about us. But I think I've got it figured out. When we left camp, we had at our camp an American pastor, the Thompsons, who had been missionaries to Japan and spoke excellent Japanese. And (when) all the missionaries were ousted at a certain point. He was assigned to our church in Seattle as our Nisei pastor. And so he went through the whole war experience with us. When we were evacuated, they moved down to (...) Jerome, right outside, and they rented a house, (...) commuted inside the camp to continue his work. (...) I have a feeling that whenever someone left to be relocated, he wrote a letter to the pastor of the First Church of whatever, just saying, "Such and such a person is coming to your city from evacuation (camp)," and explaining. "We would appreciate greatly if you could be of any help to him in finding housing or job." And I think that's what he did in our case, too. And, because we just couldn't figure out how they could find where we were even living. So that kind of connection helped greatly.

And then, too, as I said, Madison was (a) very (receptive) of the evacuees because of the mayor. He had experienced back in World War I, the discriminations against the German people, and you know how many of the German people changed their names so they could not be identified and things of that kind. So he said during World War II he didn't want that kind of thing to happen in the city of Madison. So he organized a civilian committee, including businessmen like Lee Barons of the Baron (department store), (...) a lawyer, (Mr. Benjamin Bull), YMCA (director), Loren Cockrell, Basil Peterson of the Rotary Club, and a few other laypeople of the community. And he organized them, so Madison was very, very receptive to Nisei evacuees, and they were greatly helped with their housing as well as looking for jobs. Even an Issei couple was able to find a job in one of the homes in Maple Bluff and so we were very well-accepted. So we were (...) very, very fortunate, especially during the height of the war. Well, as an example, one of our friends rented a house on Crestwood, and the house he rented was owned by a woman, a widow who had one of his sons killed in the South (Pacific). And yet she was gracious enough to accept the Okada family and rented her home, and she went into an apartment. I mean, that's just an example of one. And that whole Crestwood community backed the Okada family very kindly. I don't think their son even realized that he was any different, going to school and being... which helped greatly.

<End Segment 15> - Copyright © 2004 Densho. All Rights Reserved.