<Begin Segment 15>

TI: So how about some other memories of Heart Mountain? So we talked about your job, how about other things that you did at Heart Mountain?

JH: This is what really, shall we say, concerned me, in that we were very close, my girlfriend and I, but we weren't engaged. And I said, see, you register Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, five days, okay? Monday train will go the first Monday in April, the Tuesday train will go the second... in other words, it takes a whole month for it to evacuate. So I said, "If you'll register on Thursday, I can take you and your family to the train depot, and then I can meet you five days later, I mean a week later at Santa Anita." So they figure, well gee, that's nice, because they had no (car), all their car were all stored away too. So that was agreed, and then two days later I get a letter from Pomona Assembly Center, says, "John, for some reason we got switched to Pomona Assembly Center." We're supposed to meet at Santa Anita. And I told my dad. "Oh, komatta na." Said, "What are we gonna do?" And he says, "Well, let's wait a while." So when we got to Santa Anita I told Shig Masunaga about my problem and he says, "I tell you what, I'll go to the administration and see what we can do." So he went to the administration and he came back and said, "Yeah, we have one barrack that's vacant, so if they want to come, we can arrange it, send a truck over there." So I sent her a telegram, then she wrote a letter back, and she says the community -- in other words, she told the community, her community that, "We're gonna register on Thursday because John's gonna furnish transportation." Well, they figured, the five hundred said, "Well, if the Omoris are gonna go on Thursday, let's all go." It backfired and now they're cussing the hell out of her. So she wrote me back and she said, "I'm upset too, but I don't want them to think that I'm deserting them, so I'm gonna stay where I am." And I thought, "Holy cow. What am I gonna do with my love life?" So we start writing letters back and forth. But she never said "I love you" or "I miss you" or anything. By the same token, she didn't say, "I met another man." That's some consolation.

TI: Yeah, so I just want to clarify, so you were able to find one empty barrack so that she could move from Pomona to Santa Anita? Was that, so when you talked to Masunaga, he said they found one barrack, and this barrack was at Santa Anita for her to move to?

JH: In Santa Anita.

TI: Yeah, to move there.

JH: See, they were constructing barracks as evacuees came in. Well, once we came in there's no more trains coming. Consequently, there're empty barracks.

TI: Okay, and that's why, but she didn't want to leave her, her group.

JH: Yeah, the one that she went with.

TI: Okay, now I understand.

JH: So patience, love letters. I wrote my draft board that I was in Santa Anita, then when I got a job in the camouflage department I wrote 'em about that. And in August I got a letter from her saying, she says, "John, being that I'm in the canteen," they got to go to Heart Mountain, get ready to open the facilities there, motor pool and office staff and a bunch. So fine, she's going to Heart Mountain, but where are we gonna go? And my father says, "Komatta na." Boy, we got... [laughs] Well, the good news is that when we got officially notified that the Santa Anita bunch from Santa Clara County are gonna go to Heart Mountain, I wrote her that and she says, "I received your letter today and I can hardly express my happiness in knowing you are coming." She walked a mile and posted it air mail. I thought, oh man.

TI: So that was a signal that she really, really wanted to be together with you.

JH: Well, that's the first time she got emotional. [Laughs]

TI: Okay. [Laughs]

JH: Because courting in those days were very formal. You go in the house and greet the family, and the family wants, especially the little kids, want to play poker, I mean checkers or whatever. We didn't get to hold hands 'til, yeah, 'til we got to Heart Mountain. Even then it was very limited. I really missed going to a movie and stopping by for a hamburger, all that kind... but that didn't happen. We came out of camp, I already had a child. [Laughs]

TI: Tell me her first name. I didn't write down her name.

JH: Her, same as mine, her legal name is Hisako, H-I-S-A-K-O, but when she went to get her passport she put Alice Hisako. That became her legal name.

TI: And what did you call her, Alice or Hisako?

JH: In the course of conversation I'd get mixed up. Even now I call her Alice, Hisako. Omori, O-M-O-R-I.

TI: Good. And so when you got to Heart Mountain, describe seeing her. Did you guys have a, like a reunion?

JH: The guy that was on the train with me said, "You know, John, you're bragging about a pretty girlfriend." He says, "You got to show her to me. Can you prove it?" And I says, "Yeah, but you're gonna have to follow me." So after he got his family settled and I got my family settled, we knew she works in the canteen, so we asked, "Hey, where's the canteen?" "Over, no problem, over there." And I opened the door, she caught my eye and I caught her eye, and we just nodded and smiled and that was it. And my companion said, "Boy, is she pretty." Then after that I don't know what happened to him. Where he went, what he did, I don't know.

TI: But eventually, you said you dated at the camp, but then you also got married in camp?

JH: There again, bear in mind that her father was in detention, and my, the Japanese term is nakaodo, marriage, not a marriage broker, but the go-between between families, he starts saying, "You know, John --" I mean to my dad, he says people are -- see, she was a block secretary. She left the canteen and became block secretary, and in the absence of the block manager she has to go to the block manager's meeting, so her face became well known -- says, "You know, people are asking what kind of a family is the Omori, what kind of a girl is Alice." So he, Mr. Nakamura started to get worried, says, "You got to do something or the family'll think we're not interested." Well, in the meantime I'm visiting her when I'm off-duty, which isn't every weekend, not like her. I was visiting her one day and there was a knock on the door, and she being the oldest, she answered, and this guy comes and says, "We want to visit." And my future wife says, "I'm the oldest and my mother told me when my mother's not here to not let anybody in." "Yeah, but we want to visit." And she was firm, she says, "No." I thought, "Holy cow, what's going on now?" But well, that's so much water under the bridge. [Laughs]

TI: So there were other men interested in her.

JH: Oh yeah. Number one, they had money. Number two, if they get married maybe they get exempt from the draft. So then wheel started to turn, write letter and so forth and so on 'cause he's still in detention, and I guess he had consented, so we got engaged and got married. Guest of the government.

TI: And so to her father, was your father helping you write letters to him asking permission? Or how did that communication go back and forth?

JH: Unfortunately, he couldn't write, so the mother, or the mother selected a representative representing her family, and my family representative and her family representative wrote in their language. They got it, then he had it... that's my opinion, just guessing. The thing is he approved. [Laughs]

TI: But it's interesting how formal all that was, how formal the...

JH: Yeah, seventy years ago it was, that is, good families. Families that didn't care, they took their own course. [Laughs] So this is off the beaten track, say a family has four daughters thereabout marriageable age, and so the supposed groom would approach with a nakaodo, and our son, I mean my family's, friends from, "My friend's son would like to have your daughter for a wife." "How much?" Dowry, in those days it was dowry. That was, okay, so agree they get the first daughter married, then they have a good time, buy a car. Then the second daughter gets married, the third daughter, fourth daughter. They spend it all, then come evacuation time they were in a problem. They shouldn't have spent it. That's just one sad story.

TI: Interesting. Okay.

<End Segment 15> - Copyright &copy; 2012 Densho. All Rights Reserved.