<Begin Segment 51>

TI: Let's talk about your family. What decision did...

HS: Well, my, see, we were, we were being pushed to leave, and by, by the fact that Mrs. Nishikaze, their family, there's one girl in that family, Chea, became a nun. She wanted to become a nun because (of) her experience with the nuns. And she also had that leaning towards Catholicism before. When we were in the camp, despite the fact that we were all going (to) Catholic schools, there were only two Catholic, Catholic families in, in New Denver. And during the time that we were going to school, one of the things that they had said that they would not do is discuss religion, so they never did. But she became a nun eventually by the end of that time, by the end of the '46/'47, she decided they were going to become nuns, so she, so she became a nun and they left. The school closed down and she stayed on and became a nun. At that, in '46, through her influence on the nuns there and they, and their discussions with, with people in Edmonton, the monsignor in Edmonton said, "Okay, the Shimizu family wants to come out east beyond the Rockies, how about coming to Edmonton? We can find you jobs and we can arrange things that you can board your children and you can come to Edmonton." So my father and mother took that chance, they became, they worked at the Misericordia Hospital, myself and Grace, we became, we boarded at the hospital, and we started working as elevator operators for, as to, to... what you might call, we would do it on weekends so that the regular ones could have their day off. So we took those jobs, and we boarded in the hospital for two years.

TI: So this was through the Catholic church?

HS: Yeah, through the Catholic church. And our two younger kids, Ken and Eva, were boarded into Sacred Heart church, was a boarding school church. And they took them there in Sacred Heart school, and they stayed there for the next two years, until my father was able to get enough money put around by working, and that money he had saved in the sale of our (restaurant), whatever he was able to save from Prince Rupert, and to buy places for us to stay in town.

<End Segment 51> - Copyright © 2006 Densho. All Rights Reserved.