<Begin Segment 19>

SY: So, now in the meantime, what was your family planning to do after -- I assume they were still in, at Gila.

HS: They were in camp, and so I used to write home to my brother Tak all the time. I don't think my brother, he went to Chicago, worked in the Stevens Hotel.

SY: That was your older brother?

HS: Yeah. He hardly ever wrote to me, but I was always writing to Tak and so the letters that I wrote about the nice treatment I got, so they decided to come to Minneapolis.

SY: And that's when they were, they were slowly letting people out of camp?

HS: Yeah. So the first thing they did is, there was a Quakers hospital, they have a hostel like, and so when you're coming out of camp, if you were, asked if they had room, well then they would take anybody that wrote. So my father and my mother and Tak, the first thing they did is they moved into the hostel, and they stayed there for a little while. And then they found, my dad found a job as a florist in Minneapolis, and then my mother stayed there, but they found an apartment right, not too far from the hostel. And so it was still about five miles away from where I was living, so... well, I was living in the hotel yet, so I wasn't too far. In fact, the hotel where we were living wasn't that far from the apartment they had.

SY: So you didn't see much of them even though they were in the city?

HS: I had a good job from eight to five, so, and my dad found the job in the florist three blocks away from the Radisson Hotel, so after work I'd go over there. When they were busy, making wreaths and stuff like that, I would hop in and help 'em. And the owners, they were, when they had too many orders, then Mom would come, Dad would bring Mom, and I'd get off work at five o'clock and here they were working still, so I'd just go in and start helpin' out. This is Jewish, two partners, Arky and Red, I remember, and Arky, he's amazed and he saw me and Mom and Dad all wrapping the roses and all that stuff lickety split, and the other ones, they were just watchin' us. This one, the woman that was working there a long time, she says, "What a family." She kept saying, she just watched us making, my dad put the wreaths together. [Laughs]

SY: So he, they, did they decide to settle there? Or what happened, actually, with your parents?

HS: Well, I used to write home to Tak all the time, and my brother didn't write too much, but then some of my family, they said, well, Minneapolis sounds better, so they just, first thing I knew is, I think it's about September or November, something like that, they wound up coming to Minneapolis.

SY: And that was, do you remember the year? Was that '45?

HS: It was in '45.

SY: So the war was really winding down by that time.

HS: Yeah, it was winding down, so people were leaving camp pretty regular.

SY: And you said your older brother went to Chicago.

HS: Yeah.

SY: Was, so did he leave right after you left camp?

HS: No, it was, he left beet picking with some friends in the wintertime, then come back to camp when the season ended there. And I don't really remember when he left camp because I left camp so early, but he hardly wrote to me.

SY: So were the three sons all eligible for the draft? Were you, when you were in, when you were in camp, were all three of you...

HS: My older brother was eligible, but he never got drafted.

SY: So you don't know if he had to sign the questionnaire or what happened with that?

HS: No.

<End Segment 19> - Copyright © 2012 Densho. All Rights Reserved.