<Begin Segment 52>

TI: Well, then, so she stayed in the hospital, and she delivered your first daughter.

HH: Yes.

TI: And her name is...

HH: Sachi. Janet Sachi.

TI: Okay, Janet Sachi, and everything was fine. And so she came out, so you're now the proud father of a daughter and you have a family. And about this time, you've also been recruited by the OSS and you want to take this job. So then what happened?

HH: Well, and so I applied to say, "I would like to go to Minidoka." And the administration said, "No, we want to send you to a choice of two camps," in New Mexico or somewhere around that area. And I said, "No, I want to go because I can leave my wife with the family," the family she hasn't seen ever since they couldn't come to my wedding even. And then we didn't get a chance to go to Puyallup to see them, either. So that was my wish, and then they finally okayed it, and so we made arrangements to leave. But at that time, then there was a big question about my parents, so I had to ask them, I'm going to be leaving for Minidoka, but I'm going to be leaving the camp because I have a job with the OSS in Washington, D.C. and I want to have her be there. So I had to ask her, "Would you want to come with me?" And finally they said yes, they'll -- my father and mother -- said they'll come with me. But the day that we were supposed to leave, then we couldn't find my two sisters.

TI: Because your two sisters were planning to go with you also?

HH: No, I didn't know, I assumed they'll go. But they did have, I think, their clothing and everything else, they were packed, but we couldn't find them. And found out later that they, since we couldn't find them, I had to leave them. And later I found out that they had already married their respective spouses.

TI: That's interesting. So here you, your wife and your daughter with your two parents were going to Minidoka, and you were thinking that your two sisters would also go with you. But in this window of time, they apparently had boyfriends and had gotten married at Tule Lake and wanted to stay at Tule Lake.

HH: Uh-huh. They're both from Tacoma. They were Kibei.

TI: How did your parents feel about that?

HH: Oh, they were surprised, too, but I was frantically trying to seek some information from their husbands', now, friend that I knew that they should know, but they wouldn't tell me.

TI: Now, so let me understand. Why didn't they tell you and your parents? I mean, do you think they were afraid of something? What was...

HH: Well, we didn't know that they were already married, and so actually, I didn't know because they were in hiding. But I think they were all packed, ready to leave, vacate our apartment or room.

TI: To go live with their husbands, or to go to Minidoka?

HH: No, to leave.

TI: Okay, but then you said they were then in hiding. Were they in hiding because they were kind of afraid?

HH: They didn't want for me to find them, because they were not going to be leaving with us.

TI: Right, okay.

HH: So the parents didn't know where they were, either.

TI: So your sisters were, they decided they wanted to stay at Tule Lake, and they knew that if you found them, you would probably want them to go to Minidoka, and so it would be better for them just to hide from you at that point.

HH: Yes. I think they probably, you know, if they explained everything, I'll understand. But they were still young yet...

TI: Well, see, that's what I would think. That if they just explained to you and your parents that they were married, that you would agree that they should stay with their husband.

HH: Yes, well, it's their decision, you see. But I thought that they were already packed and my parents also.

TI: So that must have been a very sort of, you said frantic time.

HH: Yes, because they were already going to pick us up on a car, and we had to send our boxes to the trucks. They already came to pick up the trucks, trucks came to pick up the crates.

TI: So you had already sent their things on the truck, too.

HH: No.

TI: Oh, you didn't?

HH: No.

TI: You kept them. How about your older brother Kiyoshi?

HH: Kiyoshi had already left Tule Lake to work in the farm area, and he was up in Montana working for a big farm which had a relationship to the Matsuoka, older brother of James Matsuoka, who had a real estate office on Jackson Street. We didn't know him, but I guess he had the chance to work up there. So not being a farmer or anything else, we thought that that's a good place to be working because he was not, I don't think he was 1-A yet, but he would be subject to draft also if he left.

TI: Okay, so he was up in Montana working.

HH: Yes. But if you were going outside to work on a farm or something like that, most likely you'd get a deferment.

<End Segment 52> - Copyright © 2006 Densho. All Rights Reserved.