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Title: Peggie Nishimura Bain Interview
Narrator: Peggie Nishimura Bain
Interviewer: Alice Ito
Location: Seattle, Washington
Date: September 15-17, 2004
Densho ID: denshovh-bpeggie-01-0037

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AI: Well, another thing that happened in Tule Lake was the, the shell-collecting, and the shell-craft. And you did quite a bit of that, so I was wondering if you could explain the process and what was involved in doing that.

PB: Well, it, Tule Lake itself is a lake, and there's shells there, but there are shells all over in the sand, but people weren't aware that you could do something with them. And of course, if there's nothing around, somebody is gonna get smart and think of some way to make use of what's available. So people started collecting shells. And first, they only found a few of the type that they wanted, or the type they thought they could use for making flowers. Then people started digging around in the sand, and eventually, they found out that these shells are in layers, and if you dig, you could find just veins of shells. So it got so that people would go out and dig these shells, and they'd dig four feet down, they'd get in way up, way up to their waist. Everybody was digging and it got to be like a gold hunt or something. [Laughs] They were just, everybody was vying to get to the best places, and they'd be digging from one side, and somebody'd be digging from the other side, and they'd say, "Oh, that's my vein." And they got so that they say, they were counting at first, "Oh, I got very few," at first, maybe ten, fifteen shells. Later on they'd say, "Oh, I got a hundred shells," and pretty soon they were collecting them. And, of course, they're, quite a process to get to the type that you wanted because there's all kinds of shells, broken shells in different shapes and sizes, and then they had to be screened. Well, in order to screen 'em, they had, the men had to be carpenters and make little squares of something to screen 'em with. So then they were cutting the screens out of the windows and making boxes. And my dad was doing the same thing, and of course, the first ones that he took a nail and made bigger holes, so that (smaller) shells would fall through, and the sand would fall through, and progressively smaller holes until he got to the screen part, and then after they pick out the shells, the ones that they want, then they have to bleach them. So they put 'em in Purex and then after, you can't, you had to make it just right or else, if you make it too strong, they disintegrate. Then after that, they had to wash 'em and then put 'em out in the sun to bleach 'em further until they turn white.

And then, then it was up to whoever was gonna make the flowers or little birds or pins or earrings or whatever they're gonna make, it was up to the person to use their talent in making different things. But mostly, what was selling was the corsages. They were roughly made at first. I don't know what other people used, because I wasn't really interested in what other people was doing. I got interested in finding ways to make the shell flowers myself, and I didn't want just clumsy-looking corsages. I wanted them to look real neat, and I wanted to be sure the stems were wrapped real fine. And I had experience wrapping fishing poles, so I knew how to wrap the wires. And, of course, the wires was the screens that my dad took apart, and they were kind of crinkly and he tried to straighten 'em, but you couldn't straighten 'em very well. But it worked out pretty good, and then people found out about my corsages, so I kept getting orders from the, mainly from the Caucasian personnel that worked in the hospital in the administration department. So I was really busy; I got so involved that I'd wake up in the middle of the night and draw a sketch and then make it the next day. And I sold a lot of 'em and had orders when I got transferred to Idaho.

AI: It sounds like an awful lot of work.

PB: It was a lot of work because each one is wrapped with sewing thread, and I had to get the green thread, I had to send out for it, and at first, we used just the pink nail polish, so everything was that pink nail polish at first. But gradually, I was able to get paints, different paints, and I was also able to get other shells from Florida. So I'm, I was very busy making shell corsages and earrings and birds and pins, picture frames, I tried everything. And it was something that gave me an outlet. I was just making new things all the time. And to me, it just, it was an outlet for me, a wonderful outlet for me. And when I think back now, it's sixty-some years old, so they're kind of souvenirs now.

AI: They are.

PB: And people, I don't know, the schoolteachers that bought them, most of 'em would probably be gone by now, because they would be quite elderly if they're living. I don't know how many people have those corsages anymore. But I still have quite a few of 'em. And lot of people made beads, and they were selling the shells. Because people that didn't make things, why, they could get good money for it, because the other people were buying 'em. They wanted to make things and rather than go out there and dig and go through all the work of getting them ready, they had to go through a long process of eliminating the old ones. In fact, I still have the sand and dirt and everything. I have, I brought it with me.

AI: You did?

PB: I've got sand and I've got the wires and toothbrush that I use, and cornmeal and toilet paper. [Laughs] After, later on, after we went to Chicago, I bought leaves for roses, because the leaf is very hard to make. You had to cut it out of big shells, and that was a tedious job, because the shells would break. So I used artificial leaves for some things.

<End Segment 37> - Copyright © 2004 Densho. All Rights Reserved.