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TI: So let's go back to... so the war starts December 7th, you are about, what, seven years old at this point?

JO: Uh-huh.

TI: And your brother you said was four years older, so he's about eleven. And he shows you where Pearl Harbor is and how far away, trying to relieve some of your anxiety. When you went to school, did people... what did your teacher say about what was happening in the world in terms of the war and things like that?

JO: Well, what I remember most is that in fourth grade, in geography class, every time they pulled a map down, she would say, "Well (...) this is a very old map." And then she would add, "And it won't be the same when the war is over." This to me was a symbol that I should not bother to learn this right now. [Laughs] So geography was not one of my fortes.

TI: What do you think the teacher was trying to say by saying, "It's not going to be the same"? I mean, the war was going to just, like, change all these countries, the boundaries, everything.

JO: Well, they had already changed from, in terms of the maps that were on the war, which were probably World War I maps that my uncle had when my father had gone to school. I was in the same school that my father went to high school in when I went to elementary school. And there was a sense everything was on hold until after the war. People kept saying... my father sold -- my father and mother both were in business -- they sold home appliances. They closed the store; there were no appliances to sell. My father moved into a little shop around the corner and repaired radios and irons and everything else that people needed to keep going through the war. And we didn't have meat on certain days, like all kids, we gathered newspapers and scrap goods. We gave up some of our metal toys and turned them in for scrap. We were very aware. It was very much involved in the home, the home front. And in school, I don't think very much was said about it. We didn't have new textbooks. I remember all of the textbooks I had were read by my uncle who lived in our little town for a brief time when my grandmother was ill. I even got some books that he had had, and he was at least twenty years older than I. And that was always explained, "This textbook is out of date. We'll have new textbooks after the war."

TI: Interesting. How about during the war? Were there any young men coming from your town or going from your town to serve in the military?

JO: Oh, sure. The grocer's son went and he was my favorite, he used to give me free cookies and piggyback rides. So I corresponded with him, he was in Greenland. My uncle was in the service, he served in the Pacific. He was in Okinawa at the end of the war. Another uncle was in the service, and my brother was almost old enough by the time the war was coming to a close, he and his friends would talk about how they were going to go into the service. My brother kept a big map with pins on it, kept track of the war.

TI: How about casualties? Were there any casualties that your town suffered?

JO: Yes, there were, and I remember that right outside my window, on the main street, they dedicated a stone with the names of two boys who were of the same family who died in battle. And I remember also during war, whenever there was a parade, the gold star mothers... I think that, in part, that's why the photograph of Stanley Hayami's mother always just grabbed me especially (...). But we marched in parades a lot, Brownie Scouts, Girl Scouts. It was a time to be patriotic, blindly patriotic, whatever else was going to happen.

TI: And as part of that patriotism, how did people perceive, I guess, both the Germans and the Japanese, the "enemy"? When you think about during World War II, let's start first with the Germans. What were people saying about the Germans during this time?

JO: Well, I remember a friend of mine... well, we just hated the Germans. We were afraid they were going to come and take us. And I remember thinking, well, I had blond hair as I was growing up, it was naturally blond at that time. But I didn't have blue eyes, and I kept thinking, "If I only had blue eyes, maybe I could pass." Imagine, seven years old, and thinking, how would I... but then I would have to be without my parents, because I was sure they couldn't pass. They had dark hair. My father was white haired by then. But there was this dreadful fear. And there were fundraisers, and there were constant stories, well, when we ate, our mothers would say, "You must finish what you're eating because there are children starving," and they weren't just in China. There were fundraising for families, to bring families here. My parents actually, my mother wanted, my mother really wanted to adopt a child at that point. There were opportunities, there was a girl across the street from where we lived who was brought here, brought to Monticello by a doctor's family from England, and she lived there during the war. She did return to her family.

TI: That's interesting. Was that common for children from England and other places where the war was going on to come to the United States?

JO: I don't know how many came from the United States. I know that many of them were adopted by or taken in by families in the English countryside, and I know that there was also the (kinder transports) trains that came out of Germany that took orphan children into their homes. They didn't know they were going to be orphaned at the time, but they suspected. So Jewish families were sending their children to England, and there were appeals to adopt children or at least give them homes for the duration in the countryside. There weren't many in our little town; it was a very small town. My parents were going through hard times during that time, there was no business. And they were concerned about... I think they reluctantly gave up the idea. I think by the time they really got the idea, it was impossible to get any Jewish children out.

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