<Begin Segment 10>

MN: Do you remember what month you left Pomona?

IH: I think it was... May, June... must have been September.

MN: And then you said they loaded you onto a train. What kind of train was this?

IH: Apparently these are all railcars that, passenger cars that were in storage, 'cause they were in very bad condition. They had been neglected for a long time. Those are the kinds of trains. MN: And how many days was the train ride?

IH: It was four days.

MN: Where did you sleep?

IH: In the seats where we sat.

MN: Now you're four days in this train seat, you had to sleep sitting up. Did some people just get tired and just sleep on the floor?

IH: I don't think so. Maybe. It was a tiring ride and I think they provided us with boxed lunches or food or something. So I think... well, the mood just was very quiet. There wasn't a lot of socializing.

MN: How was your father handling the train ride?

IH: Well, that's an interesting thing. For the first time in my recollection, he sat very quietly on another seat by himself. I guess there was enough room. And I remember going to sit down next to him, I don't recall why, but he snapped at me. He really did. I guess he was very, very upset about what was happening to him and the family, and I just had never seen him that way. And he would normally, never raised a hand or never shouted at us at all. But at that time he just pushed me aside, that sort of thing.

MN: On a lighter note, do you recall what the bathrooms were like?

IH: Uh-huh. Maybe you've heard this story, but I don't know, we had a rail car that had a bathroom, a little compartment, private little place. And it was really just a hole in the floor of the rail car. So as the train is moving, of course, and you're using it, everything just goes straight down to the ground. And I really don't know what they did when they were in the siding from the cities and so forth. But to me, well, it was an effective way to get rid of waste, but gee whiz, how crude.

MN: Now do you know which states the train went through?

IH: Yeah, as I recall, from California we went though, more toward, to Las Vegas. I think the first night I recall, we had a siding in Las Vegas. And Las Vegas at that time was just a small little town, 'cause the rail track goes right through the city even today. And then we went through Utah, Idaho, and into Montana. And I remember Billings, Montana, we stopped there. And then from there, to the siding right there where Heart Mountain's at. There's a rail siding right there.

MN: How did you know you were going through these states and cities?

IH: Oh, I don't know. Well, I guess you look for signs.

MN: But you didn't have to put the curtains down?

IH: Oh, not... well, not all the time. I don't think they enforced that too strictly in our train.

MN: Now you said the train went, there was a siding right by Heart Mountain.

IH: Yeah.

MN: Do you remember what time of the day you got to Heart Mountain?

IH: Yeah, it was late in the afternoon, and they were waiting, everybody was waiting for us. The people there were supposed to help us. And it was getting cold, I think it was late September. And it was chaotic. Of course, I'm sure they handled other groups that came in. But the idea of unloading all these people and getting them onto their flatbed trucks, and then taking them to their barrack unit, and everyone's tired and in need of a bath and hungry. We might have gotten some food that evening, but it was getting dark. It was an organized... not well organized effort to get everybody settled.

<End Segment 10> - Copyright © 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.