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TI: So what were your impressions of Minidoka? Any interesting experiences or incidents that you, that stand out for you with Minidoka?

LH: Well, I think probably one of the most cohesive groups were the high schoolers. They had a routine, and they were very, very close to the Caucasian teachers that came in to help educate us, and I think that's why to this day, I'm still close to two of them, especially Helen Amerman Manning, who lives in East Bay of San Francisco, and I live in Sonoma.

TI: Tell me a little bit about Mrs. Amerman in terms of, what kind of teacher was she, and what topic?

LH: Yes, well, she was a core teacher initially, and then later, I think Student Guidance. But she was a... well, I think she's ninety-one now, so she wasn't that much older than most of us, ten, twelve years older. But a single lady, and very friendly and very nice, and I know from talks with her of late, that they were all told not to fraternize with the evacuees, but she did. And she treated us as normal human beings, and as normal schoolkids, and associated as closely with us as possible.

TI: And what would that mean, when you say "associated as closely as possible"?

LH: Well, she would have some of us up to her quarters, because the teachers lived in separate areas, she worked intimately with us in some of our clubs, whether it was the records club, the college-bound club. She just wasn't standoffish or inaccessible as some of the teachers were.

TI: Now, when you would compare, say, where you lived in your block with the teachers' quarters, how would you compare the two?

LH: Well, it wasn't the difference between night and day, but I mean, they all had, each teacher had private quarters. And obviously, as you know, we didn't. We all, the families all lived in one small room. They had a private mess hall with much better food, they had, you know, access to Twin Falls on the weekends, and some of the teachers, in fact, lived in Twin Falls and would commute back and forth.

<End Segment 9> - Copyright © 2007 Densho. All Rights Reserved.