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TI: Well, while your father and Jitsu were gone from Tule Lake, so now it's your mother, Bert, and you. And your mother, you mentioned earlier, she was pregnant?

JN: Yes.

TI: And she had your sister, Joyce, who was born, like, the day after the war ended. So describe that. What was it like to have a baby sister? How did that change the family dynamics?

JN: Quite a bit, I think. Because now, for the first time, I don't have my mother. And then I have, instead, an older brother Bert, and now my older brother Bert is the oldest in the family. And all of a sudden, he has responsibilities, and he can't go running around doing his own thing, kind of thing. And now, he and I were going to take care of two-week-old baby?

TI: Now, why were you going to take care -- why wasn't your mother there to take care...

JN: Oh, I'm sorry. She got sick. She became ill with something or the other, she was very ill, apparently. She couldn't come out of the hospital. In fact, there was some question as to whether or not we were gonna get on the boat to come back to Hawaii because she was so sick. But because she was -- why they didn't keep... well, apparently she was so sick that she couldn't take care of the baby, either. So we, Bert and I, took her back to the barracks for I don't know how long, but it was pretty clear -- well, for one thing, we were making milk to feed her, and Bert's idea was to make a lot and put it on the side so that we can feed her as she got hungry. And of course the milk spoiled, so the baby was getting all, throwing up and everything. Finally, we found a couple, and how and who did that, I don't know, took care of Joyce until we were ready to leave. And I remember going down to see that couple because my kid sister was there.

TI: That's amazing that the camp administration would allow two teenage boys to take care of a two-week baby.

JN: That's incredible. That's incredible. I have no idea how that worked out, who would permit something like that to happen. But they were, I guess, pretty loosey-goosey when it came to doing things up there, saying, basically, "We don't have the facilities to take care, so you do it," kind of thing.

TI: Well, so with Joyce now with this other couple, it's just you and Bert. And so what would you and Bert do with no adults around?

JN: I guess basically we just... nothing, really. Because we got the cafeteria, right, food was always there, and I'm not quite sure whether or not we were bringing it home or whether he was taking care of me or whether he ran off and had a good time after that. Because, let's see, that would be... she was born in August. So it wasn't long, right before the war ended. Oh, that's right. We left in November, I think, September... so about three months, yeah. That's right, it was about three months before we came back and before my mother was well enough also. What we did in those three months, I haven't the slightest -- I remember visiting my kid sister, though, at the home. But other than that, I don't recall.

TI: By any chance, do you recall the couple's name that took care?

JN: No.

<End Segment 18> - Copyright ©2009 Densho. All Rights Reserved.