<Begin Segment 18>

TI: Okay, so Nancy, we're gonna start the third segment, and before we start there's a question I forgot to ask. What was your given name when you were born?

NA: Nancy Keiko Moriguchi.

TI: Okay, and then when you were growing up what did people call you?

NA: Depends on, I was Kei-chan, Keiko-neechan for the family members, Nancy by everybody else.

TI: Okay. So do people still call you Keiko now?

NA: Only, only like, well, there's no aunties left now, but nobody ever called me straight out Keiko. It was always with an endearing term because it was much more heavily Japanese speaking time kind of name that, my aunties were all more Japanese speakers, so it's Kei-chan or Keiko-neechan.

TI: Okay, yeah, I just had forgotten to ask that. So let's go back to where we left off, and we're in Topaz and we had just talked about when you were named the May Princess and some of your feelings about that. Let's, let's talk about other memories at Topaz.

NA: I think I told you about my father becoming kind of like the social director and taking the kids out. I remember we were out there in the desert having some of these kinds of field games that he would organize and then a wind storm came up, and I just, it was just tremendous, 'cause we had to get back to, obviously, our block. Just seemed like miles. Of course, you're a little kid, but what was so astounding is, how could one side of my face hurt so much, being pounded by sand and wind, and the other side feel nothing, felt good, normal? And just kind of struggling as you're being buffeted, it's almost like being a sail, but you got to go that way because that's where the block was. And that, I had to share with Mitch Maki and Cayleen (Nakamura) when we were up in Heart Mountain after we'd gone through the barracks and we found ourselves at Medicine Wheel and caught in this kind of wind, it was a snowstorm, though, and it was coming horizontally. It was just that kind of same feeling, like how could the front of you get so cold and get thrown and the back side there's no, not one speck of snow? How's it coming horizontally, anyway? So it was that real strong feeling about that.

TI: And probably because you're, you're small, you're shorter, you even get more dust.

NA: Possibly, yeah. And then the, the thunderstorm, the lightning, one time we were out in, walking back from some kind of, some kind of event and the sky's kind of turning black and the thunder, and I swear there was a thunder that nearly hit me. But it was just that kind of feeling, like all of a sudden you just had to duck because you knew it was gonna, the lightning was gonna hit you. It didn't, but it was that kind of pressure in the air that you would feel. And we'd see lightning coming down over, several other blocks away and you hope it's not hitting one of the barracks, so that.

TI: How about community events? You, you mentioned the mochi pounding, what are some other community events you remember?

NA: Well, then they had the movie nights or, but we didn't get to go to many of them because we were little, but they would have these kinds of gatherings for poetry recitals or things. We had a piano, I think we had a piano recital that I had to do. There were events like that. There were flower shows. Oh, I know one, because that's another life lesson, or at least an "aha" moment. My grandmother wanted to go to a lapidary show. I didn't want to go. She says, "Well, if you go I'll get you something." I'm like, "Oh." [Laughs] It's those kinds of things you register and say, "Oh, okay." So I do have that one bribe heart, it's kind of crystal heart piece from Topaz, which I've given to the museum, but the story behind that is that's my, that's my first conscious bribe. I got it as a...

TI: And these pieces, were they made by people in the camp from stones and different things they found?

NA: It's Topaz, the central Utah, and they would find rocks. They would find it either, you'd find a lot of flint stones and arrowheads and you'd find chunks of rocks, and people would tumble them and make them into, or cut them. There's a lot of people that got into lapidary work. Topaz, as you know probably, had a real good, fine art school. I was too young to understand any of that, but certainly I know that with my grandmother went to see some of the exhibits, 'cause I remember paper flower stuff and I was amazed. One thing that my grandmother had, I guess it was one of the activities for me was I had a scrapbook and any kind of old magazine, whether my father brought it from outside or whatever, it was, magazines were very cherished stuff, I guess. But somehow it would end up on my desk eventually and out of the, out of the magazine I would cut out pictures, whatever I felt was fantasy or whatever. And I remember doing that, having this whole scrapbook full of images. And one image that I remember was, and it must've been in some kind of fashion magazine, but it was this beautiful woman with this '40s hairstyle, you know, swept up like this, dark haired woman, and she had this white strapless gown with a tulle shawl like this, and in her hair right here was this huge, it was a red lily, tiger lily, and she had it right on the, I thought that was the most beautiful princess style. When I get married that's how I want to look. It's that kind of fantasy book, but I was seven years old, six, seven, creating this. That stands out, as well as a lot of flowers. Seemed to cut flowers and put it in, but that doesn't mean I have a green thumb because I don't.

<End Segment 18> - Copyright © 2010 Densho. All Rights Reserved.