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TI: So you didn't spend that much time at Minidoka because you talked about leaving when you were sixteen, have your sixteenth birthday. But when school started in November, did you attend school?

TT: Yah.

TI: And so tell me about that. What was school like compared to Garfield?

TT: Well, at school we were just inside of a barrack, and then we sat at the tables and we just, they passed paper around to us, and we listened and that was about it. And supposed to be learning things.

TI: And was it pretty much the same as what you were learning at Garfield?

TT: No, because these teachers were, I don't know where they came from, but they would have a book. We didn't each have a book, we had to share everything.

TI: And so how would you describe the quality of education when the schools first opened in comparison to your experiences in Seattle?

TT: Well, I just knew it wasn't like a public school, and that we were all just sharing everything. We didn't have our own desk, we didn't have anything.

TI: So it sounds like it wasn't as good.

TT: No. That's why I told my mother I wanted to leave, and this is when I just turned sixteen, and she said, "No, baka no koto." [Laughs]

TI: And were there others who felt the same way, they were leaving, too, for high school.

TT: Well, not as many, because they were scared to. But I just told my mother, I said, "I'm not learning anything and I want to go out." And they had the War Relocation Authority which had people that wanted people from the camp. And so my sister, she told my mother, my mother told her that I could not leave by myself, that if she went with me it would be okay. But, see, I had found the family that needed a nanny, I guess. They didn't call them that, it was just a babysitter at that time. And it was three children, three girls.

TI: Now when you said you found, how would you find out about this?

TT: The War Relocation, people that needed...

TI: So they would apply, they would say, "I have a position open"?

TT: Yah. "I would like to have somebody come and take care of my children."

TI: Okay, so the WRA must have been having, like, I guess, ads in various city newspapers?

TT: Yah. I don't know how they did it, but that's what we had.

TI: And then you said one of your older sisters, is this Keiko?

TT: Keiko. No, Yoshiko was, she was just active with her own friends. So after she had been in camp, she and her girlfriend, they found a job, and they went to Toledo and worked at the Toledo yacht club, and they were just waitresses there, and they hated it. But when we decided, I wanted to go out, I said, "Well, as long as they're over there, we should go over there, too." And that didn't hit them very good, because they were so tired of being in there, and they wanted to go to Chicago, because lot of the people had gone there, Chicago and New York.

TI: But you had made these arrangements to go live with this family to sort of babysit or be a nanny.

TT: Yah.

TI: How about your older sister? Did she go...

TT: Well, then she went to (a family that) needed somebody to just help at their home. And that was in Ottawa Hills in Toledo, which is a real nice area. So she got a job with them. And so just close enough so that on our days off she could come and see me, or we used to take a bus and do things together.

TI: So I'm thinking, so you're sixteen years old, a high school student, and you're going to a place you've never been before to live with people you don't know.

TT: That's right.

TI: What were you thinking and feeling about that?

TT: Oh, I was out, and I get to go to school. And I don't remember being a good student when I went to school, but it's just that I felt like I wanted to get out of the camp.

TI: And when you got to Toledo, what was the, how was the reception from the family that you were living with?

TT: Well, they had already asked for me, and they knew everything about me, and they had the three girls. And so I was supposed to take care of the girls, you know, when I'm there, and help with the dinner and help around the house. And then it was in a pretty nice neighborhood, it was right near Toledo University. And so she had actually contacted a couple girls that were gonna be in the same grade to take care of me, but I never heard from them. And somehow I got to school, and I made friends with other people there. But that one woman called me just recently about a month ago, she has a son in Olympia. And I said, "Well, how did you find me?" She said, "I called the girl that does all the reunions," and she said she wondered if anybody was, who was still living that she might be able to look up, and she found my name. And right away I said, "Yah, I remember you. You were supposed to take care of me when I went to DeVilbiss High School, you were supposed to take me through the grounds, but you didn't." She said, "I know, and I felt real bad about it." But people weren't gonna be babysitters to me.

TI: So the mother was trying to make it easier for you by having some of these...

TT: Yah.

TI: So when this woman, and you probably haven't, know maybe the details, but when she says guilty, do you ever know why she didn't take you around? Was there a sense... why didn't she?

TT: I don't know. She thought maybe she was being imposed on to take care of this Japanese... they didn't know what a Japanese girl was. There was nothing besides all Caucasians, no blacks, no Chinese, no nothing.

TI: So starting with the family, were there any surprises when you showed up? I mean, did they... were you what they expected, or what did they expect?

TT: Well, they knew that somebody was coming to help take care of the girls. And so the two year old girl and I are still real close, and I hear from her. And she comes to, she keeps in touch. And one year all of them came to see me. And here they're really tall -- this is about sixty years later that they came. And it was really something, and they wanted to know more about the camps and why I went to their house, because they didn't know anything. And they wanted to know how much, she said, "How much did my mother pay you to take care of us?" I said, "I think I got seven dollars a week," and they were just like that. So then they felt like they... "Did you feel like my mother was taking advantage of you?" I said, "No." I was very happy to get some kind of spending money in those days. But, see, their thoughts about it, the way they would think and what we went through were entirely different. And I don't even know... I think I took a bus to school, and it was an all-hakujin school.

<End Segment 15> - Copyright © 2015 Densho. All Rights Reserved.