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BF: Now you -- this is a little bit of a jump -- but you mentioned before that you met your husband at Minidoka. Tell us a little bit about that.

CK: I'm trying to think when. [Laughs] The camp was formed of Seattle people and a few, I think, Puyallup, then Kent, and the valley people went to Pinedale and then to Tule. But the Portland people went to the Portland assembly center and then they came into Minidoka. So it was kind of for the first time meeting people from another area. And, so then, of course, there were the usual social activities. Minidoka was essentially a small town. I mean, it had its fire department, it had its coal crew, it had a recreation department, churches, schools, etc. And I think it may have been at one of the dances that we met. Of course, it was meeting people from another area -- he's from Oregon -- it was a little more exciting because it was different. And so it was just the beginning of a friendship there. Eventually it ended -- not ended, but then from camp I went to Minneapolis and then he came out for a short time, but then went back to go to school at Oregon State and then that's when I went to join him. And then we were married in Portland and then I stayed at Corvallis until he finished school and then came up to Seattle.

BF: So did you date in camp or were you just friends?

CK: Yeah, dated. I mean, the dances, you made dates to go to the dance, although most of it was groups. Like he had his group and whoever each of them asked, sort of remained as a group. So I guess it was the feeling, that these people from out of town, they're from Portland area, so it was a little bit different.

BF: It must have been sort of awkward trying to date in that situation where it's such a... although it's a town, a small town and everyone kind of knows each other's business.

CK: Yeah, everybody knows what time you got back and all this stuff. [Laughs] And I guess there were some instances of people going... Minidoka had a canal and after a while you could, it wasn't fenced off so you could go to the canal and like when winters, when that froze over, people could go ice skating. Don't ask me where they got the skates, but they did go ice skating and in the summer there was a swimming area and so we had heard that some of the young people would wander out that way for some privacy, but I wasn't aware of that. I'm sure that people were able to get together. [Laughs]

BF: Yeah. [Laughs]

<End Segment 10> - Copyright © 1997 Densho. All Rights Reserved.