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AI: Well, I... I hope you don't mind my asking.

MH: That's okay.

AI: I'm wondering if, if your sponsors or your parents or any other folks were trying to arrange a marriage for you while you were in those years?

MH: This was going on and I didn't know it. [Laughs] I came back because I wanted to do further study at the... and I've been in contact with Miss Louise Robyn in American (Conservatory in Chicago), so she invited me back to do some more graduate work. So that was my intention of coming back to the States. But my parents and others had other ideas -- [laughs] -- which I didn't know. And so instead of being able to go, I got married. (...) My husband-to-be (and I) grew up in the same church. His parents and my parents were real good friends (...). I have not regretted it because if I had gone back to Japan I could have been caught in the war that came on, which we did not know about. So I guess it was a blessing in disguise.

Now, after being married to my husband, I became active in the Japanese Methodist church (in Seattle), the church that I grew up in. By that time there were lots of nice young people, and they had a choir and the choir director resigned, so they asked me to take over (...). A wonderful group of about fifty-six were members, and we had some wonderful singers. A solid bass section and, oh, when I think of all those wonderful young people, they were so faithful, it was a joy to work with. And one of the outstanding things that we did, we participated in an all-city (...) hymn singing (contest). We had to perform at the Civic Auditorium in Seattle (...). We won the first place, and as a result of that we were asked to sing when E. Stanley Jones had his mass rally at the First United Methodist Church, and we were asked to (...) furnish the music. At another time, Toyohiko Kagawa, the outstanding theologian from Japan, was visiting Seattle, and they had a mass meeting for him at the First United, and the choir was again asked. So we had all kinds of interesting experiences of that kind. (...)

And that was the source when we went to camp in Minidoka, that... that is, the story of Minidoka is an interesting one. As I walked into camp that day with my suitcase, I met a friend who said, "Mae, you're wanted up at the headquarters." I said, "Gee, what have I done?" So I parked my suitcase in my barrack and went up to the headquarters to report. Well, what I ran into is something utterly amazing. [Laughs] A man by the name of George L. Townsend, who was Quaker background, was the third man from the (top), on the project. There was a project director, assistant project director, and this. And his title was Chairman of the Community Service. His job was to keep the morale of this community of 10,000 up. And he worked it through one of the Nisei fellows, and (who) helped him. He wanted someone in the specialty of sports, craft, entertainment, club work, and music. And he researched through his friends and contacts to see who would be the best to be the head of each of the departments, and I was asked to head up the music, which was utterly (amazing). And my job was to keep up, you know, through music (...). It was a wonderful experience. I've never worked (so hard) anywhere where I was given so much support and help in this desolate situation. And we could have stood there and be disgruntled and all that, but we didn't even have time. We were so busy. Well, we found out that we had a choir of about ninety-six voices that came together. And remember, camp was about 5 miles in length from one end to the other, so we chose a rehearsal area in... right in the middle, so these people... and there's no means of transportation, which means they had to walk. So you know it meant a lot to these young people to congregate and ninety, almost a hundred of them, different ones came, once a week. Or I think maybe we may have tried it twice, I can't remember. I think at least once a week. So that's how we got started. Well, for music we had no money, no budget. I did have one filing cabinet full of music that I used for my... so Mr. Townsend sent for that and picked up some of the pianos at the various churches and put them in the rec. halls. So that's how our music program began.

So I had young people busy. I broke all the copyright laws. I had them (cut) stencil the music (...) and ran them off on our old-fashioned handcraft, and that was our source of our, our music. Fortunately, I had about three dozen copies of Handel, choral edition of the Messiah, which helped greatly. So that was the source. And then, of course, in the meantime I made contact with the various music department of the area, and they helped us furnish. And then we had a music director for the school in the camp also. And by cooperating we shared music and whatnot. So we gave concerts from one end of the camp to the other for Christmas and whatnot. Not only that, the War Relocation Authority group used us as the public relations with the (...) surrounding community. And we gave a public concert at the Jerome High School. We gave one for the Jerome High School students at four o'clock in the afternoon, and then to the general public at night. And we had a wonderful reception there. Another concert we gave at the Twin Falls Methodist Church one night for the community, and the last concert was up at Rupert, Idaho, at the Church of the Latter-Day Saints. And these experiences were wonderful in reaching out to the community and to say that our Nisei group has goodwill. So that was our (...) camp experience, although it was a short (time) from '42 of spring of '43. So it was about, maybe, a little less than a year that we were able to do all that.

<End Segment 7> - Copyright © 2004 Densho. All Rights Reserved.