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TI: So let's go back to your journey. So you mentioned earlier, now, and I want to talk about this a little bit, about your older sister, Kichan, and tell me about her health at this point. What is she like?

JK: She was disabled from childhood, and so they said something like rickets or something like that. She had deformities, like she never developed a full, a fully formed body. Her arms were deformed, her legs, torso, everything, her head, and her upper body area as she became an adult. She was born in 1921, so she would've been, what, twenty-one years old when we went to camp, and so stature-wise, she'd probably, maybe, what, three, less than four foot tall. And she was pretty, in fragile health.

TI: And your mother would take care of her? Would that be the primary caregiver?

JK: Yeah, her mobility, she could get around on a tricycle, from childhood, and she was able to, to, with her deformed arms and her deformed legs, nevertheless, be able to ride a tricycle. Or if she couldn't, then we'd, anyplace we went we would push her on the tricycle.

TI: And so when you had to take this journey to Poston, how was the family transported?

JK: We went on buses. And frankly, I don't even remember what they had, I'm sure they had to carry her on the bus, if she had to go to the restroom. And I believe they let us take the bicycle, but, you know what I mean, she just... yeah, camp life would've been extremely harsh, 'cause from, like even from our barracks to where the mess hall was, there's no way, it was all sand, you know what I mean? She wouldn't, there was no way she could've even gotten from there to there, all the food. And then the restroom was, like, maybe she would have had to use a bedpan every day. I mean, it was just, it would've been...

TI: So given her condition, was there ever any discussion about not having her go to camp, to maybe another facility or something?

JK: No, I don't, that, I don't recall. But I must say that my recollection as far as camp life is concerned, I don't recall ever seeing anyone like a disability like she had in the camp. I just don't even remember that. I don't remember seeing anybody in wheelchairs, for example. I may have seen old guys with a cane or something like that, but I honestly don't recall... I think, I lived in a block, I don't, I guess maybe the museum would know... like, I live in Block 26, I don't know how many were in the block, maybe a hundred. But like, I don't recall anyone having any kind of physical disabilities.

TI: And so tell me what happened. So on the trip, how was it for her?

JK: Well, by the time we got to Poston, you know what I mean, she was already, she was all distressed, and she just laid there, she was... and they called the ambulance and took her to the hospital, and then she expired the next day. Of course, my mother was, of course, was devastated. But that's, yeah, it just, it just went very quickly, just went very quickly. Yeah, my daughter Charleen did some research, and the best she could figure it is that Kichan was the second death in that camp, among internee death.

TI: And how did that impact you? So this is your older sister, someone that you probably helped care for too during this time. What did it mean to you?

JK: Well, I guess for me, I'm a typical kid, I just, so selfish and stuff, I says, well, thinking about my own life. But the main thing I remember, of course my mother was in great mourning, and I just remember the service for her. It's kind of in that book a little bit, just one coffin propped on two egg crates or orange crates or something like that, not flower one. And then all the elderly people, they're, remember you only get one suitcase, right, so no pictures or anything, but I can just picture people in whatever they were wearing, and that was it. That was it. And then I was told my mother insisted that she wanted her cremated, and so they shipped the body back to San Diego and it was cremated at a mortuary in San Diego. And then, in fact, my mother and father were interred there in a cemetery in San Diego, right across the street from where Kichan was cremated. In fact, she's, her remains are buried there, close to my mom and dad in San Diego.

TI: Do you recall any contact with the camp officials while this was going on?

JK: No, not myself. No, I really, that, I don't recall. I just, I think, just yeah, kind of all I remember is, "Wow, where are we," kind of a thing. [Laughs] Classic...

TI: It must've been, so that probably, I mean, so here you're in a brand new place, but then you have all this family stuff going on. It must've been a lot going on in terms of your head, in terms of what...

JK: Yeah. It just, yeah, I think, I kind of feel like I was in a mental no man's land. Just, "What's going on? What are we doing?" And then ultimately, I think we settled down where... of course, remember my uncle, Stockton Papa? They were with us; we were all together. So somehow we got to the point where we had to get on with our lives. And the Colorado River's five miles away, so we started hiking to the river 'cause it's the heat of the summer. So we'd hike to the river and go swimming there, stuff like that. And my dad was a fisherman, so, and he had to settle down, kind of. And I remember Stockton Papa, he's like a Euell Gibbons kind of a guy. He, one, he wanted to trap a coyote and try to tame it so it'd be a dog, and then he started making charcoal right away, right away. He knew how to make charcoal. He'd go out right to the edge of the camp and chop down some mesquite trees and start, build a big bonfire and dig -- and he was a, he worked like a dog and so, farmer guy. So yeah, we were probably one of the first families that had charcoal already.

TI: And what would they do with the charcoal? What was the charcoal for?

JK: Well, if you wanted to heat, like the hibachi, if they wanted to cook something in their own little rooms. And of course, by the time winter came, then you needed the hibachi to stay warm. We did it to stay warm because there were outdoor movies, and so everybody brought their own little one gallon can full of charcoal that you lit. You'd put it under your damn seat there like that, so there's a couple a hundred of you with a hibachi under, with the charcoal. You know the one gallon cans that the food comes in?

TI: Right.

JK: Yeah, and that's how you stayed warm while you watched the dumb movie.

TI: Now, was there any issue of carbon monoxide poisoning in camp or anything like that?

JK: No, I don't remember.

TI: I was just curious with charcoal and things like that.

JK: Well no, the barracks all had holes in the floor and holes in the wall.

TI: So they had enough ventilation that you don't have to worry about that. [Laughs]

JK: Yeah, you kidding? [Laughs]

TI: Okay, that's true.

JK: No shortage of oxygen in those damn barracks.

<End Segment 15> - Copyright © 2012 Densho. All Rights Reserved.