<Begin Segment 29>

MN: And then you came back with your father and your cousin's husband, and you came back into Manzanar?

AM: Yeah.

MN: And this was early 1945, so you had not left Manzanar yet.

AM: No. So from then on we started getting ready to go back to Los Angeles, so before we came back we made four or five trips into Los Angeles on that old car, in preparations to go back. So each time we would bring something back so we could just leave it in our garage, so that kind of helped a lot because if we didn't, if we tried to take it all back at one time it would require a great big truck or something, so whenever we could -- and then one of the trips, like my friend that was living in the same block, he wanted to go after his truck, so we brought him back and took him to Long Beach someplace, and then he picked up his truck and drove that truck back into Manzanar. And then he brought two truckloads on his car for us, too. He made quite a few trips himself, and so that really helped my father a lot because, the reason for all that truckload of things is because when my father started the studio in Manzanar he started out by using just equipment that this Caucasian photographer could purchase during that time, so there weren't that many things that were that good. So one other time my, after this Caucasian fellow left the studio, after he made a big mistake of taking the lens, lens off the camera to go home, he ruined the picture, he got -- well, my father more or less had to fire him because he made such a bad mistake when there's such a film shortage. So he left the camp and so that left my father with all the stuff that he bought, so my father wasn't too happy with it, so he went to the Evacuee Property head and told him my father had put a lot of his equipment in the storage, "So somehow if you could get it." So this Evacuee Property head man told, got the idea and wrote back to Washington, D.C., the headquarters for the WRA, telling them that the storage company is about to go bankrupt so you got to get all of my father's equipment out of storage and have it brought to Manzanar, so that's how my father was able to get all of his original equipment. So big truckload of equipment came, so when it was time for us to go back to Los Angeles we had to take all those things back, and plus all the things that we had for the, in the barrack. So it took about three, four trips on this truck that this friend of mine picked up at his farm to bring back, and because I took him down there to get the truck he says, "Sure, I'll help you because I was able to get my truck because you took me down." We must've made about two, three trips with that truck, take all the photographic equipment and the things that my mother had in the house. So all that thing, we packed it all into the, one of the four car garage and we had to convert one of the four car garage into living quarter and one for storage, so the family was living in the garage for a time until the people who occupied the house was able to move out.

MN: Did you spend the Christmas in the garage?

AM: Yeah, we could've. Yeah, one Christmas.

MN: 1945 Christmas, 'cause your, the student was still in your house, right?

AM: Yeah. Course, we didn't have much of a Christmas because of that, but, well my brothers were young and my, by that time my young sister and my brother, youngest brother, they were only about, still going to grammar school, I guess. So we sort of had a little Christmas party for them. But a little after the new year we were able to move back into the house, so that wasn't too bad.

MN: But living in this garage, was it just like living at Manzanar?

AM: Yeah, in fact, it was more crowded because it was such a small place. I was living at, of course, I wasn't living in the house myself because I was staying with my friend, which was close by to where my folks were living. So there were about, my two brothers and sister, my mother and father living in this small place, and I was the only one that was not living there, so it must've been pretty hard for them, yeah.

<End Segment 29> - Copyright © 2010 Densho. All Rights Reserved.