<Begin Segment 21>

TI: Let's, so from Heart Mountain, any other memories or stories before we move on?

FS: Not really. I went outside to work.

TI: Tell me about that.

FS: I went on sugar beets. I went with a boy that was a farmer from Covina, west Covina, farming. And he told me, "I know how to do sugar beets. So I'll help, you and me, we'll make a team. I'll take the load." So I did the best I could, but gee, I couldn't keep up with him topping sugar beets.

TI: So I'm curious, why would you want to do that make money when you have --

FS: Just to go out. To go out, instead of being in camp. I didn't have a girlfriend, nothing to keep me in camp. So I thought it'd be a better chance, more fun going out of camp. And I found out it's all work. No fun in that. So I came back -- no, no, I came back in camp, and then there was a job open in Cozad, Nebraska. So I went to work there. And I was there, I don't know, a month or two, then the superintendent, he came back from retirement. And Cozad, Nebraska, was Armor company. You know how big Armor is. So that place had sheep. It was a sheep ranch. A hundred thousand head of sheep. [Laughs] Yeah. And they had five hundred Japanese from all the camps, Rohwer, Jerome, every camp that had people. So this superintendent, for some reason, he picked me to be his assistant.

TI: This is at this...

FS: Place.

TI: ...place.

FS: Yeah, this ranch. So why did he pick me out of five hundred? I don't know. He says, "You gotta help me." So I did timekeeping, then I did requisition work, then I went to, outside of camp to the town of Cozad to pick up things, you know. Then I went once a month or twice a month to, what's that capital?

TI: Not Cody?

FS: No, no, in Nebraska. What was it? There was a capital? Anyway, I went there.

BT: Lincoln.

FS: No, no. Lincoln was this side. Cozad was the place where we were working. Okay, anyway, I went there with a .38 pistol to pick up the payroll. I had a gun.

TI: So they gave you a gun.

FS: The superintendent told me to, "Take this gun because you're going to get, I don't want you to get held up. Do you know how to use it?" I said, "Yeah, I know how to use it." I didn't, but I told him, "Yeah." So I put a .38 here and went down, I had a dog, sheepdog. I finally had a dog of my own, and the superintendent said, "That dog is no good no more. He can't be a sheepdog." I said, "Why?" He said, "He's used to you. He's gonna watch you instead of sheep." So he did. He followed me everywhere. So I'd take the dog and go to Nebraska, to that place in Nebraska to pick up the payroll. I used to come back with maybe, not that much money when you really come to it. The farm use money, the labor money, pay all the Japanese help, and there was white people working, too. I think there's about forty or fifty whites. So there was a big, big place. They had a mess hall, feed the whole people. They fed the Japanese and whites separately. They had a white cook for this side, Japanese cook for... so I had to make the requisition for him. He could do it, but he's too slow. He was so old. So he pretended he's a big shot, but he said, "Frank, I can't do this work no more. You've got to help me." I said, "Why don't you get that white guy?" He said, "I don't trust him."

TI: So, Frank, what is it about you, do you think that people trusted you so much that they would kind of single you out...

FS: I don't know. I don't know. I really don't know. And then, you know, I did that work for him and he said, "You know, you'd make a good superintendent right now. You could do my work." But he said, "You know what? Better yet, I requisitioned to the head office in Chicago, and you're gonna go to the Armour Institute of Technology." And that became the University of Illinois. He wanted me to go for college. I said, "I can't go to college. I didn't even finish high school. He said, "No way. When you get to that school, there's no entrance exam. All you do, from day one, you go to class and they know, you tell 'em you're from Armour, you get a special dispensation, they call it. And you got room and board, and you got a nice job that's gonna pay you x-money a month. So you got no problem with money, you got nice lodging. As a matter of fact, when you get into lodging, there's going to be a lady to take care of your room, do the laundry and clean your place. Because you're an employee of Armour. You're a future superintendent."

TI: So that sounds like a pretty good offer.

FS: So I says, "No high school diploma," "No, no, don't worry about those things." Once you get in there, you're under the care of Armour. 'Cause they own that school. They do what they want. So gratis, huh, the word gratis. I went in, no tests. I could have gone, and a month later, FBI came and said, "You gotta go back to camp." 'Cause they found out I signed up for the Gripsholm with my dad. So we were "enemy aliens" now. See, to be able to go back to the Gripsholm, you've got to be classified "enemy aliens." You can't go back to Japan as an American citizen. But I was a minor, though. See, my dad was the head of the family, so we went under his name. So he was the "enemy alien."

TI: Oh, so the FBI came for you to bring you back to, what, Heart Mountain, and then sent to Tule Lake.

FS: No, no. Just back to Heart Mountain.

TI: Heart Mountain.

FS: I can't go work outside.

TI: Okay.

FS: Oh, that superintendent, he was mad at the FBI. And then he said, "Frank, I want to talk to you." So I went into the room, he got a hold of me. He cried. He cried. I was so touched by him. And he said, "Didn't I treat you like a son?" I said, "Yeah, maybe more." He gave me a lot of leeway. "And I did everything I wanted to do here." He said, "No, not what you want, you did what the company wants you to do." That's why, that's when I found out he recommended me for school. Then the only catch was, he said, "Once you go to that school, you graduate, you have to serve so many years in the Armor chain, different places. And then once you serve that chain and you want to get out, you could, because obligation's over." But there was a contract, I have to sign that. It wasn't bad, I'd get four years of schooling with a B.A.

TI: So if the FBI didn't come, do you think you would have done that?

FS: I would have done that, yes. Because he already committed me. He sent my name in, and it was approved by the Armour corporation, big shot. So I was really mad. I thought that here was a golden opportunity, I could serve. And he told me about Armour, he said, "Once you get out of school, you just go under an understudy, they teach you what they want you to do, you learn the Armour method. So it's nothing what you want to do, it's what they want you to do. Rules and regulations, you abide by that, you've got a lifetime job.

TI: Wow. And it's just amazing how life throws these curves at you, and you have this opportunity.

FS: And out. The only time I didn't have nothing good was at Tule Lake.

<End Segment 21> - Copyright © 2009 Densho. All Rights Reserved.