<Begin Segment 21>

MA: So at this point, how many people are actually living in your, in your barrack with your family? There was you, your parents, what about your siblings?

GM: Yeah, my sister. My oldest sister, she got married in camp. My other sister got married before we went into camp, so...

MA: So she went with her own family, her husband?

GM: Yeah, she had her husband, but they had their own barrack, barrack room. And my sister, the older sister, got married in camp, so that left my dad, my mother and me.

MA: I'm curious about this... so she had her wedding in, in Minidoka?

GM: My sister's wedding? Yeah, my sister had a... well, she got married to a Kihara, and Kiharas owned the, the Main Fish Company here in Seattle. And they were relatively well-to-do, and he worked in the administration building. And when he got married, they had the reception in the mess hall, and he invited a lot of people, the white bosses and everything, lot of those were invited, including the head man. And they came to the reception and wedding, and a strange thing happened. To me, it was very strange because I didn't know what he was doing, but he had a bottle of, at least a bottle of whiskey, a bottle of sake, all the beer you want, had gin, everything, on every table.

MA: How did he get all this alcohol?

GM: [Laughs] Well, with his connection before the war, in Denver, I don't know how he got it in, but he got it in. And it was one big hell of a party. And all these big shots that were there, they kind of turned their heads the other way, they're having a good time, you know. They didn't say, "Where did you get this?" or what, they just... by this time, the camp was pretty well settled, see. And it was a party. I tell you, they had more, I got so drunk. 'Course, that was another story. [Laughs]

MA: So then the, the white, kind of, camp administrators actually showed up to the wedding... is that right?

GM: Yeah, that's, that was the end of it. I mean, they, they didn't say nothing bad about it, they just showed up there and had a good time. It was amazing, everything was done wrong. I mean, you weren't supposed to have any liquor or anything in there. And, of course, being on a truck myself, or going in and out of town, I used to smuggle my whiskey into camp, but that was small compared to what I saw there, because the thing about it was that they had sake from Denver, and you couldn't find that in Twin Falls. And the sake bottles were big, tall bottles compared to other bottles, and how they got 'em into camp is beyond me. Because they shipped it all in there, and it was really something.

MA: I bet that wedding was kind of the talk of the camp. [Laughs]

GM: Oh, I don't know. I guess lot of us was awful surprised. But it was some party.

<End Segment 21> - Copyright © 2005 Densho. All Rights Reserved.