<Begin Segment 19>

TI: Now, I think after your junior year, a decision was made that you would attend school outside of camp. Can you talk about that? How was that decision made?

FD: Oh, well, a teacher or somebody came to me one day and said, "You can go to college outside if you want to." And I said, "College? But I'm only a junior. What about my senior year?" And so anyway, I thought that I might not be able to get into UC Berkeley if I didn't have all the prerequisites done in high school. So I said, well, I guess maybe I should go to high school instead of college, so that's what they arranged for me to do, to go to high school.

TI: But then why high school outside of camp? You could have stayed in high school in camp.

FD: Oh, because outside of camp I would probably get a better education than in camp. And then, too, it was an opportunity for me to see other parts of the United States, because as things were, I thought that I'd probably live my entire life in California and never see anyplace else. And this was an opportunity to see other parts of this country.

TI: So you were pretty excited about this.

FD: Yeah. And the only thing I wasn't excited about was going to college. I thought, "Oh, dear, I'm so short and so young, and I don't know anything." Well, if I don't finish my prerequisites in high school, how am I going to get into Cal? And at that time, nobody told me that I could have gotten those prerequisites done at this college that they were thinking of sending me to. By the time I found out, it was too late.

TI: Now, were they doing the same thing with other students in your grade?

FD: Yeah, there were a few other students.

TI: So they were essentially thinking that spending another year at the camp high school probably wasn't gonna help you that much, so it was better to get you outside for a better school.

FD: Yeah.

TI: So how did you decide to go to Brecksville, Ohio?

FD: Oh, that was decided for me by somebody, I don't know who.

TI: And so talk about the journey to Ohio. I mean, what did you have to do? Was it just like hopping onto a train and going to Ohio? What was it like for you?

FD: Yeah, we got on a train, and I think that the windows were either blackened or the shades were pulled. Anyway, we weren't allowed to look outside.

TI: So when you say "we," how many other Japanese Americans were there?

FD: Oh, there must have been a whole train, rather, a train carload. So there was an armed guard on both ends of the car, and the shades had to be drawn. I don't know what we did about going to the bathroom, I guess we must have been allowed to go to the bathroom somewhere, or maybe the car had a bathroom, I don't remember.

TI: Do you recall what the guards were like? Were they friendly or were they pretty distant?

FD: They were distant and sort of grim looking. And if I were in that situation today, I might have tried to strike up a conversation with them. But then I was too intimidated at that time.

TI: So when you arrived in Ohio, what was that like for you?

FD: Well, it was sort of exciting.

TI: And so they had arranged for you to stay with a family?

FD: Yeah.

TI: So tell me a little bit about the family. Who did you stay with?

FD: It was a family that had three children. One was ten years old and she happened to be the same height that I was. And then there were two younger children, one was five and the other three or something like that. And the father owned a news company, I think it was a newspaper publishing company or something like that in Cleveland.

TI: And so you stayed with this family, you were kind of like a housegirl where you would help with the chores and things like that?

FD: Yes.

TI: And then you would then go to school at the local high school?

FD: Uh-huh.

TI: So how did that community accept you? Because you're probably, there aren't very many Japanese in Ohio. So what was it like for you to go to Ohio?

FD: Well, it was pleasant, and I had no real complaints about it. And at school everybody was friendly, that is, almost everybody, there was one boy that I didn't like.

TI: Now, did they know where you had come from, that you came from camp?

FD: I think so. Well, anyway, it was a pleasant interlude, I should say.

<End Segment 19> - Copyright © 2016 Densho. All Rights Reserved.