<Begin Segment 8>

TI: So after a few months in Puyallup, you were then moved to Minidoka?

LH: Oh, yes. August 23rd, I remember... in fact, I guess it was August 22nd, and August 23rd is when we landed there. But a minor incident I should mention, that Lillian, the oldest, had joined us, was part of the group that went into Puyallup, but she got special dispensation and left Puyallup in early July to join her fiance in Worland, Wyoming. Because the Ishii family, the Dunn family and the Ishii family had relatives in Wyoming, and so she was able to get out of "Camp Harmony" -- what a euphemism, "Camp Harmony" -- to go to Wyoming to marry John Ishii.

TI: That, you're right, that's very unusual. I've never heard of anyone who was able to do something like this.

LH: Well, that's exactly what happened.

TI: And again, this is from these contacts, I guess, that John's family had.

LH: I can only assume that.

TI: And how did John get to Worland, Wyoming?

LH: Well, the Dunn family had set it up because of relatives of the Dunns and relatives of, of John. It'll come to me as we speak. There was a, I remember meeting her after the war, it was part of the -- she wasn't an Ishii, but Virginia Ondo --

TI: Yes.

LH: Oh, you know the name? She married a Chinese American judge.

TI: Yes, Judge Chan, Warren Chan.

LH: Yes. But that's part of that family, and I do know, because I remember I dated her a few times. She was going to the University of Washington. Anyway, I should also mention, my second oldest sister never went into the camp, because immediately after graduating high school, probably in the autumn of 1941, went to Washington, D.C. to work for, of all places... I don't know if it was at the time, but I know during the war it was called the Office of War Information, where everything to do with the Manhattan Project went through her hands. [Laughs] Can you imagine that? Through the hands of a Nikkei.

TI: And she, and she retained that job during the war?

LH: Oh yes, all during the war. Then rejoined --

TI: That was your other sister?

LH: Yes, the second oldest who's married to Kiyo Hashimoto.

TI: That's interesting. That's interesting. And just a follow-up to the Worland, Washington, or Worland, Wyoming.

LH: Yes.

TI: My, my mother-in-law grew up in Worland, with the Hayashida family. And so that's why...

LH: Is that the Block 7 Heidi Hayashida family?

TI: No, because she actually was in Worland during the war.

LH: Ah ha, I see.

TI: And so, so they never went to camp, so it was just... but the Worland, Wyoming, when you said that, it was kind of interesting.

LH: Yes. But of course, I remember distinctly getting off the train there, somewhere in Idaho, and then taking a long bus ride into the camp. And I lived in Block 10, 3-B, but Block 10, I guess, wasn't completed, so we lived in what was called a recreation hall, I think it was Block 13 or 15. Because every block besides the barracks, how many barracks I can't recall, ten barracks, each block had a laundry room, a mess hall, and a recreation hall. So I remember we initially, probably for about a month, lived there before we moved into 10-3-B.

TI: And so at this point, your family was pretty much the boys and your younger sister and your parents.

LH: That's right.

TI: 'Cause your older sisters had gone.

<End Segment 8> - Copyright © 2007 Densho. All Rights Reserved.