<Begin Segment 40>

AI: Well, what was your living conditions in Minidoka like, compared with what you had been in Tule Lake?

PB: Well, everything was much the same. We had the same type of building, and it was just by coincidence that my mother and dad were sharing apartment with the Uyeji family that we shared with in Pinedale. And I, my son and I were sharing the apartment with a family that we knew from Auburn, and this girl and her husband, and we had a blanket stretched across the middle of the room, separated their section from our section. And then next door, this girl's parents lived next door, on one side, and on the other side was a family that I didn't know, but we got acquainted. But it was the same way; there was about four or five families separated, and we had the potbellied stove and bed, and that was about all the furniture we had. I had a table that this man, Mr. Tade, had built for me from scrap lumber in Tule Lake. So I disassembled it and brought it to Idaho, and planning to put it together, but then happened to burn up one of the -- [laughs] -- couple of the legs of the table during the time that we had a coal strike.

AI: Tell about that. What, now, you had a potbelly stove, and you usually had coal...

PB: Yes.

AI: ...to burn in there. And then, so what happened with this strike?

PB: I don't know just what happened, because I had no knowledge of why, the fellows that delivered the coal somehow went on strike for some reason or other, so we didn't get any coal. I think maybe we got one bucket and that was it.

AI: You must have been --

PB: So anyhow, we had to, it was cold; it was terribly cold. We're not used to cold like in Idaho and Tule Lake, in the wintertime it was very, very cold. And we had to keep warm some way, so we were burning anything we could get a hold of. And people were cutting sagebrush and if they found scrap lumber anyplace, and they were picking up scrap coal everyplace, digging for coal and trying to get as much as they can. I just happened to burn up my table legs so I couldn't have a table. So all I had was the bed and the potbelly stove. But after these, this couple that lived on the other side of me, after they moved out, then I, since my parents lived a long ways from where I lived, I lived in Block 26, and I still don't know where my parents, what block they were in. I think maybe Densho would have a...

AI: Yes, a record.

PB: You would know where they were. But I know the Uyejis were living with my mother and dad, so it seemed like they were part of the family all the time, because they were with us in Pinedale, and here they were with my mother and dad again. But anyhow, after these, this couple moved out, I had my mother and dad come up and live with me. So it felt real good, because it felt like home. It seemed like I was closer to my family than the rest of the family. The rest of the family, after they grew up, they weren't that close to my family, but I always thought about Mother and Dad. And it seemed like I always ended up with them.

<End Segment 40> - Copyright © 2004 Densho. All Rights Reserved.