<Begin Segment 14>
MN: So when you were in Rohwer, what kind of games did you play?
AS: Oh, like I think of Kick the Can, because I remember the stump was out there and the can, (missing the can and kicking the stump).
MN: Did Rohwer have Girl Scouts?
AS: Yes. We had a very good group in our block. Very nice lady, her name was Mrs. Umezuka. I read of her name in one of the local papers, so she may have been active in the community. Very, very nice lady. (Her daughter's name was Cecelia).
MN: What did you do as a Girl Scout?
AS: I can't recall.
MN: Were you able to go outside, hiking, camping?
AS: No, oh, no. Just did things according to the Girl Scout handbook.
MN: Can you share with us what the Alpha 7 is?
AS: Oh, we had a little club of all girls, because we're in Block 7, we called it Alpha 7. And a young lady by the name of Gladys Nakamura led us. She was only fifteen, she was, kept us together and kept us busy, so it was fun. It was a fun time for me.
MN: What did you do?
AS: I don't remember. It was just a group to get together, I guess.
MN: Can you share with us how you learned to play the koto at Rohwer?
AS: Oh, it was very brief, but my mother insisted I get some kind of music lessons, and what impressed me was the koto was made out of an apple box, so it was very short, it wasn't long. But it had strings on it, and so learned the typical Sakura chords.
MN: Now the odori teacher, Fujima Kansuma was in our camp. Share with us how your father was connected to her.
AS: Oh, dear, he was the baishakunin. (...)
MN: Was your father really good at being a baishakunin?
AS: I think so. (He was instrumental to many couples).
MN: How many marriages do you think he helped to make?
AS: Oh, I don't know, quite a few.
MN: Now, you snuck out of Rohwer. Can you share that story about your friends sneaking out?
AS: Oh, there (was a) group of us, and we had some coins in our pocket, so we went underneath the barbed wire and walked to the local, like a, I guess it would be a little store, and we took an empty gallon jar, bought the 7Up and Orangeade (...) and we just poured it in there and came back. We were so scared, but we had fun doing it.
MN: If it's okay, I'm going to ask you a very personal question. You started menstruation in camp, menstruating in camp. When you started to bleed, did you know what was going on with your body?
AS: I would say in those days, Isseis didn't really explain. My mother, of course, never did really take care of me, so my sister did. But instead of talking, she handed me a booklet which was by Kimberly-Clark, making those sanitary pads, and it's called, "From One Girl to Another." It's very interesting how we're just brainwashed to start reading, you know. Until then, I had no idea, just was petrified, 'cause no one told me. I was a slow learner and didn't know a lot of things.
MN: Where did you purchase your pads?
AS: I don't know. Probably through the Sears-Roebuck catalog like we did in those days. We had the crazy old sanitary belts. It's amazing what we went through. It's comparable to the garter belts that we wore, wearing hose, nylon hose. We wore these long contraptions with little hooks, that's how we had stockings, we wore stockings. Well, it was similar to that. We just had little sanitary belts with little hooks on it.
MN: So, you know, I'm, like, I'm not used to this. Were they disposable or did you wash them?
AS: They were... not the belt, but the pads were. And of course we'd get it through Sears-Roebuck I guess. That's the only way we could purchase things. And I think they had a canteen, I don't recall that either. Those are necessities, I'm sure they had, they had other paper goods for us (like) toilet paper.
MN: Let's see now. Your father, what did he do in Rohwer?
AS: He was a block manager.
MN: What about your mother? What did she do?
AS: I don't remember.
MN: Well, your mother was a midwife before the war. Did she help out at all in, the pregnant women in Rohwer?
AS: I have no idea.
MN: I saw this photo that you had of, this looks like Girl's Day at Rohwer. Did you celebrate Girl's Day?
AS: Oh. In the mess hall we had, for any occasion we'd try to do things, and some people actually had dolls, beautiful dolls, and we had a celebration in the mess hall.
MN: Were these dolls made in camp?
AS: I don't think so. Not these, these particular ones, Someone must have had it.
MN: What about Boy's Day?
AS: I don't remember that.
MN: Was it at Rohwer that you saw your first snow?
AS: Yes.
MN: What was that like?
AS: It was very awesome. It was just interesting in the sense that, it was just a, made the ground white, that's about it. But it was very cold.
MN: How about the summers? What were summers like at Rohwer?
AS: Very, very humid. There were a lot of mosquitoes.
MN: You know, I've heard of people catching rattlesnakes and eating them. Did you ever do that?
AS: No.
<End Segment 14> - Copyright © 2012 Densho. All Rights Reserved.