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TI: Well, while we're on the subject of Floyd Schmoe, when you were in jail for nine months, you had a lot of visitors, and one of those visitors was your future wife, Esther Schmoe, who is the daughter of Floyd. Can you talk a little bit about her visits while you were in jail?

GH: Yes, we had regular visiting day. I think one of the days was Tuesday, and I can't even remember how long a period the visiting hours were. It was something like 2:00 to 4:00, or something like that. And people who where interested would come and ask for visiting with a particular person. And then you're lined up to take your sequential place in the queue, the queue line. There was another day, it might have been on a weekend, which was also open for visitors. Those that have, you know, like lawyers who needed to see me, or there were some other visiting persons from out of town that had some kind of special allowances for visits, might be permitted to come in and see me in the front office or some place like that. So I'm, we're talking now about the regular public visiting days.

Esther was one of the young Friends that were interested in giving support to those conscientious objectors in CPS camps, Civilian Public Service camps, and others who were preparing to be sent there. And I was in the group anticipating a possible assignment, since I was classified by the local draft board as an authentic, official conscientious objector after a hearing on my behalf. So, she would come in, particularly after she started as a freshman at the university, training for nurses training, that usually had two years at the university then the remaining five years would be in the hospital assignment. So, during the fall term she used to come in on the Tuesday visiting period. I think during part of that period, which was her chemistry lab, which she would skip when it was time for her to visit. At first it was irregular visits, and eventually towards the last couple of months I was in jail, she came in regularly. And we, we'd spend, since there were usually line up people waiting, we'd spend ten, fifteen minutes visiting. Usually with some continuity about certain kinds of chores she was doing for me as my runner, getting certain information, or looking for things I was requesting, or taking a message to someone, something like that. And that was the kind of visits we were having. And eventually it became various kinds of personal questions, and so it was a visitor arrangement among close friends. That's as far as we went as far as a relationship went in prison. She was one of many people who came in who were students, or other young people. I had older people visiting also, but young people were very interested. And...

TI: When you say "young people," so you thought of Esther as one of the young people because she was what, about six years younger than you were?

GH: Yes, she was, I was beginning my senior year at the university. But I was older than the usual seniors because I didn't go one year at a time in sequence. I'd work, and then go a couple of quarters, fall and winter usually, and then I'd drop out in the spring and through the summer quarters working. And so I was taking a longer time to get to be a senior. So she was a freshman and I was a senior, so to speak. And she was coming in on periods when she should have been in the lab, actually. She had things to make up after she left. So...

TI: What were your sort of initial impressions of Esther during this period?

GH: Well, we had some meetings with Young Friends activities, and she was in the group of Young Friends, which were high school and university, and university age people, in the youth group. And we would discuss a number of things like field team for emergencies, like earthquakes. I remember there was a couple of years before I was in, an earthquake in Mexico, to which my roommate, Howard Scott and I had volunteered for. And Esther's older brother, Ken Schmoe had volunteered. And when we found out that Ken was also a volunteer, we sort of got together and made plans that the three of us would go when the time came. And actually, since my roommate and I were already registered conscientious objectors, we had to clear with the draft board for being gone, and especially being out of the country during a period when we might be called. We didn't want to be called, we didn't want to be delinquent so we went to clear it. And they said they couldn't clear it. Draft board members were new people, too, on this business. It was the first time we had civilian-type draft, conscientious, or military draft. So it, they're feeling their way through, and they said they didn't see how they could give us a special leave. I said, "Well, it's just, if our names did come up, you would have our address and you could wire that we're needed back, and we'd head back. So it'd be a half a week's time or something of that nature. So it wouldn't be a long time." Well they said it's out of the usual arrangements, and they didn't, they weren't in favor of arranging anything of that type. So we, after thinking it over, decided we won't risk going on our own, under those circumstances.

TI: But this, but this is a good indication that, yeah, you knew Esther before...

GH: Yeah.

TI: ...even the trial and then...

GH: Yeah.

TI: ...while you're in jail, she came and visited you.

GH: Uh-huh.

TI: After nine months, you were out on bail and went to Spokane. How did the relationship continue while you were in Spokane?

GH: Well, by the time we went to Spokane, I went to Spokane, we were, we're on regular mail correspondence too, in between the visits. So, we continued that. And other opportunities for meeting which developed were the releases from Minidoka for people who had cars that were kept in the custody of U.S. government. You know, Japanese Americans were more experienced on being excluded. They would have all registered that way for their cars instead of selling it for a song, and other types of things, kitchen supplies and so on. They gave things away, sold things for a song, instead of putting them away in government custody. They then would have gotten most of it back. Well, some of those cars had to be transported from Seattle to Minidoka. And so one of the ways we worked up was, some of us were in Spokane who could give up a few days, who would go to Pasco, Washington, just across the border from the western restricted zone. And somebody from Seattle would drive it up to that point, and then we exchange drivers and he would continue on from there into Idaho, Minidoka. And one of those exchanges involved Esther and a close older friend of hers to drive as far as Pasco, and then we would exchange. On that particular exchange, she told me that she had a couple of extra days, so she could go as far as Weiser, Idaho, where my parents were, and she could visit them, too, and see the rest of my family. And so we stopped by. We picked up some hamburgers or something like that and took it out to one of the parks at the edge of Pasco and we had picnic supper. And then in time for June Mott, who was our other friend there that was returning to Seattle on a bus -- we brought her back to the bus depot. And then, when she took off we headed towards Weiser. And I guess that was the start of a relationship that became more personal. Until then, our discussions were more general. And so that's the way the courtship, so to speak, began on that basis.

<End Segment 2> - Copyright © 2000 Densho. All Rights Reserved.