<Begin Segment 13>

FM: And so during my free time, I did play (...) baseball. And I started to play baseball with these guys. And one of the friends that I met there playing baseball was a guy named Heizi. And, of course, we had other times where we would just sit and talk. For me it was really the first time that I think I ever had any interest in women. Sixteen, you know, just about the right time. I don't know that I didn't have any interest, but I had the courage to talk to women. Anyhow, there was a group of... so we met a lot of people. But Heizi and a couple of girls from Milwaukie, Oregon... Milwaukie is another city contiguous to Portland, just south of Portland. And in time, they got, Heizi and Marge got pretty interested in each other. And I remember Marge became, was a friend initially. (...) The people from Yakima had to go to, I think they went to...

TI: Heart Mountain.

FM: Heart Mountain, is that where they went? Anyhow, Heizi was a good friend and Marge was a good friend, so I said, "Okay, Heizi, I'll watch her, I'll watch her for you when you go." And it turns out that Marge's family and our family just happened to be relocated to Minidoka into the same block, and I became real good friends with Marge. In fact, it got a point where we were, we started to go together, and Heizi never ever got there. I think one time he came to the camp.

TI: So did you ever feel guilty about that? Because you were supposed to watch Marge for him...

FM: Well, no, I didn't feel guilty, I just, of course, became enamored with Marge, you know.

TI: Now where was she from?

FM: She was from Milwaukie.

TI: Okay, so she was Milwaukie. So you met her at the Portland Assembly...

FM: Yeah, I met her at (...) Portland Assembly Center. And we... anyhow, we became good friends. We became more than good friends, you know. (...) When her sister had gone out of camp very early, because I think she was pregnant and they wanted their child to be born out of camp, outside of camp. So they left early '43 (...). He got a job in Independence, Missouri. And when they were out there for a while, Mr. Yoshizawa, that's Margie's dad, said, "You can't stay in this camp too much longer.

TI: He said that to Marge?

FM: Yeah. He told his daughter, Marge. And so, and he said, "Since your married sister, will agree to have you live with them, I want you go out (...) to live with them. Do that, please." And she consented to go. But by then, Marge and I were more than friends. And so when I was able to (...) leave camp, I left camp shortly after... in early '44 when I was a senior. (...) And I did that, and subsequently, anyhow, I married her. And we were married for sixty years before she died.

TI: So I'm sorry, so did you get married in...

FM: Not in...

TI: So when did you get married?

FM: It was '47. This was '44 that I left. But I went out... the reason (...) I wanted to go school, which I did. But I was seventeen. (...) They subsequently moved to... he worked on the Des Moines Register.

TI: So this is Marge's brother-in-law?

FM: Yeah, Marge's brother-in-law. (...) His name was Bob Hosokawa, who happened to, well, he was Bill's brother. Do you know that name, Hosokawa?

TI: Yeah, he was a journalist, too.

FM: Yeah, and Bob was a journalist, too.

TI: And didn't he end up in Florida? I'm trying to think where he ended up, someplace on the East Coast, I thought.

FM: He moved all over. (...) But when they moved to Des Moines, Iowa, I went there and started school at Drake. But this is when I was still seventeen and I was not yet even registered for the draft, but I did have to register for the draft there. And after I spent about a year in school, I was drafted.

TI: Okay. So I have a question for you about Marge. At what point did you think you were going to marry her?

FM: I think even before she left.

TI: So back in Minidoka?

FM: Yeah, back in Minidoka, yeah. I was pretty enamored with her.

TI: So tell me, what does dating look like at a place like Minidoka? What did the two of you do...

FM: Well, there's no place to date. But you know, we went to dances together, and we fortunately lived in the same block, (...) our association and our dating was going into the laundry room, that was about the only place that we had a place to sit and talk. We didn't do too much dating, per se. I guess the only thing we did was going to the dances that were held.

TI: Well how about even eating together? Since you guys were in the same block, did you guys eat together in the mess hall?

FM: I don't think I did. I didn't eat with her. (...) I didn't eat with her too much. (...) I probably did a little bit, but not often. She had her friends that she ate with, and I probably ate with my friends. But other than that, we were together. I helped her with schoolwork, I was one year ahead in school, and things like math, she didn't like, so I helped her there quite a bit.

TI: And then when she moved, when she left the camp, did you correspond?

FM: Oh, yeah. I corresponded with her often.

TI: Now, did the two of you keep those letters? Do you still have those letters?

FM: No. Although when I was in the service, Tom, she write me a letter every day, two years. And I wrote her every day also. It was free for me, and it was pretty nice, you know. It didn't even cost me the three cents that it cost her to send a letter. But she was very good to me.

TI: And what happened to all those letters? They just disappeared?

FM: Oh, after a while, we dumped 'em. That's too bad, huh?

TI: Yeah, I think that would have been priceless for your grandchildren and great grandchildren to have had those.

FM: Yeah. (...) Well, she started nurse's training in Des Moines when I was in the service. And in '47, we did get married. This is when I had been discharged from the service and I was in Portland helping my brother and father begin their grocery business.

<End Segment 13> - Copyright © 2015 Densho. All Rights Reserved.