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TI: Oh, before you talk about your university experience, Dorothy, you visited some of the internment camps while you were living in Utah.

DI: Oh, yes. While we were there, let's see, was it during... I'm trying to remember, was it during the time we were in Orem or was it in Sandy? But I remember visiting. First we visited Colorado, Fort Lupton, during the winter, and visited the Watanabes who were Mie kenjin friends. Then we visited Delta, Utah, and visited Topaz camp. Because we had the Hayashis, relatives by marriage.

TI: They were in Topaz?

DI: Hayashis and the Ishizakis in camp. My mother baked a turkey and we took that still hot turkey and put in the trunk, made gravy and took it down to Delta to Topaz. And because it was still warm in the trunk, the gravy just got bad in the trunk, it spoiled, but the turkey was okay. And they really enjoyed the turkey, I remember. One thing I remember about Topaz was dead of winter, it was cold. On the back part, north side of the barrack, they had put a frame, flooded it with water, and it was frozen, and that's where they kids were ice skating. I thought, "Oh, how neat." That's all I remember about Topaz.

And another trip, we went to Heart Mountain, Wyoming, during a snow blizzard in Cheyenne. We could hardly see. Went through Idaho, to Cheyenne, and up to Heart Mountain. And I remember trying to get into a car, the key, I couldn't get the key into the lock, it was frozen stiff from the ice and moisture. And somebody came to help me. I don't know how we got the key in there. Maybe he lit a match or something, melted the ice. But it was dead of winter, so I really couldn't see what type of a social life, or really didn't visit too many people. My parents were there to visit friends, fellow Mie Kenjinkai, Mie-ken people. And I didn't know too many people, so I just don't have too many memories except the ice and snow and traveling in that condition. And I don't even remember where we stayed in camp while we were visiting. Details like that are just gone.

TI: Do you remember, did you get to walk around in the camp then pretty much, do you remember?

DI: No, I don't remember. We must have not walked around too much because it must have been slushy and cold and snowy and frozen. It wasn't the best time of year, but that's the only time my father could get out of farm work. And he liked to travel.

TI: Do you remember how you felt going to the camps?

DI: It was just another place to visit, and I saw faces of familiar friends, and I really, like I say, I wasn't that sociable, and therefore I was just comfortable within my own family group, and I felt secure within my own family group. And therefore I really didn't miss other social contacts that much. I knew of them and I socialized with them when we visited, but it was not an important part of my life at that time.

TI: Did your family talk much about the camps?

DI: No, we were too busy working, too busy working so hard. In Sandy we had workers from Topaz come and help with the labor, because we had tomatoes, cabbage, potatoes, onions. And Mr. Toone, the landlord, had horses. My brother Albert loved it, 'cause he loves riding them. He saw the neighboring boy riding his horse, and so he got up on the farm horse and he learned to ride, too, and he learned to control them. He was very adventurous. The farmwork, we had, the Hayashi family joined us in Sandy, we got them out of Topaz camp. And they came and we had this, the Toone family provided housing, it was like a shack, barrack, small short barrack, and so we were in one half, Hayashi family was on the other. Then we had a separate barrack where we had young men from Topaz who did the farm labor, extra farm labor, they were housed in the other small barrack.

And one time, my mother had to go to the dentist in Salt Lake City, so she left me in charge of their meal for dinner. Oh, my, I think the poor men starved because I didn't know how to make much. [Laughs] And so they had plenty of rice, I think. I made chicken noodle soup out of a dry mix, Lipton's chicken noodle soup, dropped egg into it, but I swirled beaten egg into it. So they had soup and rice and I don't remember. I think I made salad. For hard-working men, it was a very light dinner. When I thought about it later on in the years afterwards, I thought, "Oh, the poor men that night. They must have been so hungry afterwards." But I just did my best; I didn't know any better. My mother said, "Oh, make the rice, make the soup and the salad," and so I did. She forgot to mention any protein, so they didn't get any except for the egg in the soup.

<End Segment 7> - Copyright &copy; 2012 Densho. All Rights Reserved.