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TI: Well, you were at Tule Lake and then you and your family went to Minidoka. Can you talk about why you moved from Tule Lake to Minidoka?

ES: My husband's father had a stroke, and he had a minor stroke earlier, before the war -- and that's the reason that my husband decided that he had to take over that store, Nichi Bei Fish -- but after we went into camp, then he was fair, he was taking care of himself, but they always have another stroke and die. So he had another stroke, so they asked us to come and see him if we wanted to see him again, alive. So the two children and my husband and I took the bus to, from Tule Lake to Minidoka. I can't remember what month that was, but, I have it written down, but anyway -- I think it was in March, March of, March of '42.

TI: Well, it'd be '43 probably.

ES: '43 maybe.

TI: September '42 was when you went to Tule Lake.

ES: Tule Lake, yeah, that's right. yeah, '43. Anyway, so we went and we took the bus, the two little children, bought two tickets, one carrying other, another carrying, and the little one I was carrying. And we ran out of special morning milk. My son was already allergic to something, so the only thing that he can get, drink or tolerate was special morning milk, and there's a can, in a can. Well, I thought that I had enough to get him to Minidoka, but ran out of milk in Burns, Idaho. Was it Burns, Idaho?

TI: I think so.

ES: Anyway, so the bus stopped and I said, "I see Safeway over there," I could see a Safeway store, so I said, "You mind just waiting for two minutes, just, I need to get a can of special morning milk," not realizing that you had to have a red stamp, red token to buy anything that comes out of a can. Everybody had to do that if you wanted to buy anything that comes out of a can, but anyway, I didn't know that so I went to the counter, cashier and said, "Do you have a token for this can of milk?" I said, "I don't know what you're talking about." So she was trying to explain to me and I says, "Well, you know, I'm coming from camp, moving, going to Minidoka to see my father-in-law," and I didn't have it, so then there was a lady behind me and she says, "Here's a tag." So I took it. That was really a sad thing for me. If it wasn't for that lady I wouldn't have had that milk.

TI: So this stranger helped you when she didn't have to.

ES: Yeah.

TI: 'Cause she heard your story.

ES: That's right. But you know, I wish that I had her gotten her name, but you don't think about those things, you hurry to get back to the bus. And I had to fix that formula in the bathroom, and you keep thinking about sterile things, but you don't worry about anything sterile when you're just trying to fix the formula.

TI: But these simple acts of kindness can mean so much to people.

ES: That's right, yeah.

TI: Yeah, that's special that you had that opportunity.

ES: But there are a lot of things like that. Really I don't know how I took, took all that, but you have to live through it. Yeah.

TI: Thank you for sharing that. That was special.

<End Segment 21> - Copyright &copy; 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.