Densho Digital Archive
Densho Visual History Collection
Title: Bernadette Suda Horiuchi Interview
Narrator: Bernadette Suda Horiuchi
Interviewer: Tom Ikeda
Location: Seattle, Washington
Date: May 19, 2009
Densho ID: denshovh-hbernadette-01-0015

<Begin Segment 15>

TI: And so what are your fondest memories of living in Wyoming? What did you, when you think back...

BH: Well, it was nothing special, but it was nice. I didn't mind. Even now, I'd go back if I had a chance to live there. It's a really nice place.

TI: It's a simple life.

BH: Very simple, just like there were a lot of Okies coming in, like in the movie that you see. The people were all nice because Paul was the foreman so everybody respected us.

TI: And tell me... so I asked, you said you liked it, simple life. What about hardships? What was the hardest thing about Wyoming?

BH: Oh, that was kind of hard, the winter. The water was hard to get because it would freeze. And it had to be washed by hand, everything, take a bath in the tub. We had plenty of coal, the railroad furnished the coal, so we had a lot of, kept warm. Potbelly stove, the kids all grew up with that potbelly stove, too.

TI: Well, so eventually you had a son in Wyoming. And I'm trying to, wondering, how was it raising a son without running water, electricity, all the niceties that you'd expect?

BH: It was hard, but you get used to it.

TI: And so tell me, how, what year did you have your first child?

BH: '36? Yeah, '36.

TI: And so you were, what, twenty-three?

BH: Twenty-three.

TI: And you got married when you were eighteen, nineteen?

BH: I got married when I'm twenty-two.

TI: Twenty-two, okay. So right away you had children. Wyoming, and how many children did you have?

BH: Three. Three boys.

TI: And so --

BH: Two were born in Wyoming and one was in Seattle. So the second son...

TI: And so once you had your first son, then you're busy just taking care of...

BH: Oh, yes. And since I didn't have a mother, I didn't know what to do with a baby. [Laughs] But fortunately there was a Korean family that lived, had a farm. And so I got to know them, and she was a nurse at one time, so she came and showed me how to take care of the baby and this and that.

TI: That's interesting. So there was a Korean family?

BH: They were a family of, three families living together there had a farm.

TI: And do you know why, how they got to Wyoming?

BH: I have no idea about them.

TI: And it was interesting because the woman was a trained nurse?

BH: That's what I was told. She had, there was three families living together.

TI: Oh, that's interesting. That's the first time I heard of Koreans being in Wyoming.

BH: Kim and... person's name was Kim, and then there was a Chung. I can't remember who the other ones were. But anyway, there were three men, different families, they all lived together.

TI: And how did the Koreans and the Japanese get along in Wyoming given that...

BH: Fine. There was nothing like that going on at the time.

TI: So no resentment that the Japanese had occupied Korea or anything like that?

BH: So sometimes on my way between where we lived and Green River, the town, we had to go by it, sometimes I'd stop in and chat with them. Sometimes they would send you down to lunch, says, "Have some lunch with us." I was kind of hesitant at first, but they were more like Japanese except they had kimchee, that was the only difference. So every time I'd stop, get home, I'd smell like garlic. So Paul says, "Oh, you stopped at the Koreans' again." [Laughs]

TI: And so there was, did you ever talk about what was going on in Japan or Korea?

BH: No.

TI: And this family, do you know how long they had been in Wyoming? Were they --

BH: The Koreans?

TI: Yeah, the Koreans.

BH: I don't know. They were already there when I went.

TI: Were they immigrants or were they...

BH: I don't know. The girls seemed to be Niseis, but the men, I think they were from Korea.

TI: Oh, interesting.

<End Segment 15> - Copyright © 2009 Densho. All Rights Reserved.