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DM: And then when did you get out of camp and how did you get out of camp?

AM: Well, when my father came back, joined us in 1944, summer of 1944, I remember his saying that this was no place for kids to grow up, and he was specifically thinking about my brother, of course. Because by this time, my sister and I -- I had graduated in '43 and my brother was still in, at that point I suppose it would be eighth grader. And my dad decided that this was no place, and so he got the job that he could get, which was through the Catholic church, he was able to get a job with an Infants' Home, which is essentially an orphanage for babies in Utica, New York. And we left with a train ticket each, that's five train tickets, from I suppose it was Twin Falls, but some train station nearby, and twenty-five dollars each, I remember that. And my father being worried about it, but then I remember the food piece was the most worrisome for him to try to figure out how he was going to manage to feed us all from Idaho to New York, upstate New York. And I remember it being December, and the reason I remember is because we got stuck in Rochester, New York, because the trains couldn't go because we had so much snowfall. So we were stuck there overnight for, maybe it was more like one full day plus a night. And I remember food as being a very serious problem for, trying to find some food for us. And I don't remember any of the details, but I remember getting an orange, I remember that. But we were stuck there fully, a full two days, I think it was, and we finally got to Utica, New York, by train through the snow, and arrived in Utica, New York. And the snowfall was so deep that the house that we were assigned to, could not see the house across the street because the snow had been piled up so high. So that was my introduction to the Northeast U.S.

DM: Well, that was a rude awakening after coming from the relatively temperate climes of Seattle.

AM: To, and then to sojourn in Idaho, which was cold, but drier. I mean, we didn't have much snow.

<End Segment 16> - Copyright ©2008 Densho. All Rights Reserved.