<Begin Segment 19>

BK: Here are some pictures, and it looks like it's from the camp area. Could you tell us a little bit about yourself, at that time? How old were you, and where was that?

MH: I was fifteen, going on sixteen. You know how kids are. [Laughs] I'm sure my brother brought the camera in when he came in from furlough, so of course, he took all the pictures that he could. And I know this is him, he's the one that came home.

BK: Right, and that is...

MH: Ted.

BK: That's Ted.

MH: He's the one next to me.

BK: Right, okay.

MH: When we were young, we were the closest.

BK: And when he left for the army, did he leave at the same time Ken did?

MH: Yes, they both left.

BK: What were your feelings? You were so close all through your growing up years... it's seems as though from what you've said. When they left, how did you feel?

MH: Well, I felt... of course, I was lost. I was more worried about Mom and Dad, because they weren't young. My folks -- Mother was forty-five when I was born, so, she wasn't a young lady. But like I say, they adjusted to it. For some reason, my folks have always adjusted to everything. Maybe it's because of the way they've had to live, Mother being a war bride -- I mean, a picture bride, and Dad being an orphan. They knew they were going to stay in camp until... they had no intention of leaving until it was, some of us could get together and get together again.

BK: So, you were, of course, last but Aki was still there.

MH: He left. As soon as the boys left, he got a job in Omaha, and he relocated there.

BK: So it was just you, and then your parents.

MH: Uh-huh.

BK: Then Sho comes back. No, Ted had come back...

MH: On a furlough.

BK: ...for a furlough and he probably brought the camera. Now this is a picture of your mother and father.

MH: Yes.

BK: And again it looks like it's out, either in front or back of the barrack.

MH: This used to be the recreation hall.

BK: Oh.

MH: Because we were, our barrack was right in front of it. So that was the recreation hall. I don't even remember them ever using it, because we always used the mess hall. [Laughs]

BK: I see a lot of flowers there.

MH: Mother always had flowers. I don't know where she ever got any of the seeds, but Mom was a farm girl and she, flowers were her thing. She was always, in Japan she did that tie-dyeing? What do you call it? She wove material, because when she was in Japan, she was adopted by an auntie who ran a weaving in her home. And Mother said that when the girls would leave -- they'd come to their place to do the weaving -- and when they would leave, she was just young, she said she would make a mess of the girls', so the uncle made her one. So she learned to -- a little one -- so she learned to weave since she was a little kid. And I'm so sorry that I never tried to get her to teach us, because she'd done some beautiful tie-dyeing.

BK: Have you saved any of those?

MH: No. I'm so sorry. My daughter had one for a long time, but it finally went away. But she used to tie it, and we used to watch her, Ted and I. She'd tie this, and then dip it in the dye.

BK: Uh-huh, that's a real art.

MH: It is. And to think we were so dumb. [Laughs]

<End Segment 19> - Copyright © 1998 Densho. All Rights Reserved.