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TI: Before we get to the accident, I'm just curious what a typical day was like in Bellevue for you.

BH: It was nice, we were just, you know, no prejudice or anything like that we got along with everybody. We had lots of hakujin neighbors, very nice.

TI: Now, do you remember, if you could think back who some of your best friends were back in these...

BH: I did have very good friends. They used to live, from where we lived, it was about... I don't know how many blocks it would be. But had a girlfriend there and they were very good to us. To this day, I don't know where, she left, they moved to Yakima eventually. I don't know where they are now, but she was my best friend.

TI: Do you remember her name?

BH: Evelyn Parrish.

TI: And so she was hakujin?

BH: Yeah.

TI: Evelyn Parrish. And what were some of the things that you and Evelyn would do?

BH: Oh, there used to be a little tree, I don't know what they call that, you know, small trees where we used to go in there and play house and things like that.

TI: So actually inside the tree you would play?

BH: No, no, around it. Those small trees, they're not those big trees. We used to go in there and play house.

TI: And if people were to describe you as a student, what kind of student would...

BH: I wasn't very smart. [Laughs] Average, I guess. Maybe a little below average, I don't know.

TI: But how would they describe you personality-wise? They'd say, "Bernadette is..."

BH: Oh, yeah. I was known as Mary in those days.

TI: Oh, Mary.

BH: Yeah.

TI: And what would they say about you, Mary, or about Mary back then?

BH: I don't know. I have no idea what they...

TI: Okay.

BH: School was way down there on First and... where the Meydenbauer Bay is right now. It was an old, looked like an old abandoned church. Upstairs was the high school, and down below was a grade school. We used to have one row of first graders, and second graders on the second row and so forth. So up to four grades in one room.

TI: And so in your grade, about how many kids would there be?

BH: Probably ten or so, ten or eleven.

TI: So it's kind of like when you hear about the, kind of, one room schoolhouse.

BH: Yes, that's what it was. They had a great big boiler or something next to me in school to heat the place.

TI: I'm curious. Of the people that you went to school with, how many of them stayed in Bellevue for their whole lives?

BH: I have no idea, 'cause I left, after the accident, we left, so I wouldn't know.

TI: So you didn't really stay in touch with anyone after...

BH: No.

TI: Any other stories about growing up in Bellevue that you remember? Anything that comes to mind? Like, whether the cemetery or any other...

BH: Well, I had a brother who died that was between me and my brother George. He died, and I remember there was a plot way up there by the... I think it's 116th out in Bellevue. I don't know what the street number in those days. But they had a cemetery there with all Japanese, most of 'em, with a Japanese name on it. 'Cause I heard later on that during the war, they tore it all, destruct, people came out and anything with a Japanese name, they just took the gravestone off or something, so mixed up, I don't know what happened after that.

TI: And how did your brother die?

BH: He was born dead, I think. I think they said he had a, they called it "blue baby" in those days, I guess. So I have no idea.

TI: And so you mentioned during the war, there was a lot of, I guess, anti-Japanese vandalism. But before the war, you said it was pretty good in terms of...

BH: Yeah. In Wyoming it was real nice.

TI: Well, before Wyoming, Bellevue, I mean, Bellevue was, you thought, before the war was, they were good to the Japanese.

BH: Well, we just got along with the neighbors, everybody. We got along fine in school.

TI: And, boy, do you have a sense of how large the community was, Japanese community was back then?

BH: You know, it's hard because they were all scattered wherever their land was. We were sort of removed from everybody. I mean, the others were, they had a place, it's called Midlakes at that time, but it's where all the Safeway and all the... there's a little lake there, and they were around it, around the thing. They had real good soil, so it's all in a row. They used to have farms.

<End Segment 6> - Copyright © 2009 Densho. All Rights Reserved.