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MA: So you were eleven when Pearl Harbor happened. Your mother...

NM: Let's see. Yes, I was eleven.

MA: So your mother had passed away a few months earlier.

NM: In the spring.

MA: In the spring.

NM: March, uh-huh.

MA: You had moved down from Sacramento to Santa Monica, southern California. Where were you when Pearl Harbor happened on December 7, 1941?

NM: I was already sent to Colorado.

MA: Okay, so you were in Colorado. Can you talk about the circumstances about why you were sent there?

NM: Well, my aunt was living on a farm in Fort Lupton area. And she had three sons, and they were younger than me. And the youngest one, they wanted, my aunt wasn't feeling too well, so they wanted me to take care of the younger brother, even though I was only, what, eleven or so. And one of my aunt came along with me to Colorado, and when the war broke out, well she barely made it back to Santa Monica. She was on a train full of soldiers. [Laughs] But they all treated her well.

MA: Okay, so you were living in Fort Lupton, Colorado, when the war broke out. Do you have any memories of that day? About hearing about it?

NM: No, I just, no. I knew about it, but it didn't bother me. I guess I was too young to even comprehend what was happening. But on the farm, I think it was towards the end of the war, we had, there was a German prison in Brighton, which is between, well, we lived between Fort Lupton and Brighton, and these prisoners used to come to work on our farm. And they were young, 'cause towards the end, they had nothing but young boy in the service. So my aunt and I used to take sandwiches and apples out to them to supplement their lunch. But we really, and I was on the farm until I was almost sixteen. And we really worked hard. Like sugar beets and all that. It was hard work.

<End Segment 7> - Copyright © 2008 Densho. All Rights Reserved.