<Begin Segment 11>

TI: So kind of give me a sense of a typical day at Puyallup. What would you do?

TT: We'd sleep in, and everybody else, and you had a breakfast hour. But friends of mine, we were at that age when we're just primping and putting lipstick on and getting ready to go, and we'd be about the last ones in for breakfast. So we were given the reputation, that when myself and some other girls went in, the guys in the kitchen would say, "Uh-oh, here comes Lipstick," because we'd all put lipstick on and get it all over the dishes and everything. [Laughs] So that's what they ended up calling us, they said, "Uh-oh, here comes the lipstick."

TI: Now would they do it kind of in a joking...

TT: In a funny, yah, joking, yah. Well, see, that's where I met Jiro. He was working in the kitchen as a dishwasher, and he says, "Yah, we used to see you guys come in and everybody said, 'Oh, no, here they come, they're the last ones in here and they're all wearing lipstick.'"

TI: So the lipstick group, how big a group was this?

TT: It was only about four of us.

TI: And who were the others? Do you remember who they were?

TT: Yah, I remember who the others were, but never really associated all that. It's just that Jiro used to remind me all the time. He says, "Oh, yah, you guys used to put some lipstick." You notice I don't wear any anymore. [Laughs]

TI: [Laughs] You used up your quota of lipstick.

TT: Yah.

TI: Now what about the rest of your family? So you went with the lipstick crew, how about your parents and your other sisters?

TT: Well, they went with their friends to go eat, and my mother worked in the cafeteria there, in the lunchroom. And so she used to hand out food as the people came in. So we never had any togetherness with the family.

TI: And your father would go on his own with maybe his friends?

TT: Yah.

TI: And then your younger sister, same thing with her friends?

TT: Well, she probably went with the younger people, or my mother might have taken her in.

TI: So you're a late riser, you get the last sort of...

TT: And then we have to dress and fix our hair. [Laughs]

TI: And then you go eat breakfast, and after breakfast, what do you do?

TT: I don't know what we did. Just nothing because we didn't have school. We played cards, in those days we played canasta and I don't know what else. But we'd get together with our friends in their room or our room, and just wait for the day to go.

TI: Now with so many young people in camp, did they organize any, like, social events, whether it's games or sports or, I don't know, dances?

TT: Dances.

TI: At Puyallup, they had at Puyallup?

TT: Yah. Because then they had the Minidoka... that wasn't Minidoka there, it was still Harmonaires. But they were good.

TI: So tell me about the Harmonaires.

TT: Oh, they played music just like Glenn Miller. And we had these watchtowers where the MPs would sit, and in the evening they could hear the music. And we'd be by the fence just kind of goofing off, and they said, "Are they playing records?" and we said, "No, those are regular kids playing music." And they said, "Boy, they're really good." And these guys up there on the tower are just kind of moving around, you know.

TI: And so they were playing all the popular music of the time?

TT: Oh, yah, all the Glenn Miller.

TI: And so people are dancing there, too?

TT: Yah, then we'd have the dance, and then we'd go inside and we'd dance.

TI: And who were these musicians? They were just kind of like...

TT: People that took up music.

TI: And so people like, so people from Garfield, Broadway?

TT: Anywhere, anybody that could play used to be there.

TI: And the Harmonaires, how big a group was it?

TT: Well, they'd have maybe about eight or ten people at the most.

TI: Okay, so it's pretty big.

TT: But they were good. And then we'd just go in there, and the girls would stand on one side, the boys on the other side, and then somebody comes, "Oh, here comes so and so."

TI: Harmonaires, yeah, I'm not sure if I've heard of them.

<End Segment 11> - Copyright © 2015 Densho. All Rights Reserved.