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TI: So from Puyallup you go to Minidoka, Idaho, and tell me about that. What was Minidoka like?

MH: Well, we only had one room for seven people and we barely were able to get seven army cots into the room. There was hardly any room to walk around.

TI: And what are some memories of Minidoka for you?

MH: Well, I was in high school by then, so we made new friends. Yeah, it was, it was, we had teachers that, not too many regular certified teachers, but a lot of camp teachers, people with some college education who taught algebra or biology or something.

TI: And when you weren't in school what kind of things did you do?

MH: We played basketball, or we went ice skating. In the winter we ordered skates from Montgomery Ward's and we skated along the canal, which is kind of dangerous because the water was still running down the middle and we'd skate along the side. And in the summer they built a big swimming pool. Not a pool, but dug a hole in the ground and filled it with water.

TI: Going back to the skating, so yeah, I've been there, the irrigation canal. It's pretty large, and so you're skating on the side. Anyone ever fall in?

MH: Yeah. Not during the winter, but during the summer I remember my mother's friend's little boy fell in and drowned in the canal.

TI: When you say canal people think it's kind of a small little ditch, but it was like a river.

MH: It was a swift current, yeah. But there were little inlets that would freeze, and then along the edge it would freeze, so we would skate. It was kind of dangerous, but we did it.

TI: You mentioned earlier how you had stored things at the Baptist Church. I interviewed Reverend Andrews' son and he mentioned how his dad would make trips back and forth.

MH: To camp, yeah.

TI: And oftentimes bring things from the storage area to people in camp. Did your family get anything from the church? Do you remember anything, like the sewing machine or anything like that?

MH: No, not until we had left camp. I think my mother then requested that things be sent to her, so they were sent to, I know we had the sewing machine in Chicago.

TI: Okay, so your family, when they left Minidoka, did not go back to Seattle? They went to...

MH: We came to Chicago.

TI: And why Chicago?

MH: Because that's where the jobs were. But --

TI: I -- go ahead.

MH: But they wouldn't, when they finally paroled my father after he had a rehearing and was declared not a menace to internal security, they would only let him go to the Rocky Mountain area, so we had to go to Denver. But my brothers and sister already had jobs here, so just my mother and my younger brother went to Denver first, and I was in Chicago as a schoolgirl, schoolgirl. You worked for a family and you got to go to high school nearby.

TI: So they provided the room and board?

MH: Yeah, and I did housework and babysat their ten year old daughter. Yeah. And then after I finished my junior year at high school, then my mother said come to Denver, so I went to Denver and it was my mom and dad and my young brother and myself in Denver.

<End Segment 13> - Copyright © 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.