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PW: So what happened with your, so the family started preparing, they were told they have to go to...

HS: Yes. So what they did was, in fact, in the Tolan (Congressional Report on War Relocation) in Katsu's, they show a picture of him boarding, because we didn't rent the store out, we jacked the Dodge sedan and the delivery truck, and put it right into the store and kept it there. I remember all the canned goods were put into wooden boxes so they could be shipped, and most of the, although the government finally offered public storage for the evacuants, evacuees. Anyway, whatever you want to call them, Tamotsu didn't trust that they would be lost. Anyway, at that time, I did not go to assembly center because I was to go to Grinnell College, and that's another story. But my train was going to leave two days after my family went to the assembly center, so a Mr. Tanimura, who was a stockbroker, something that I knew nothing about, and I stayed over his home, and he took me to Third and Townsend. So I get on the train, and the Union Pacific train, I don't know how that crossed, that was San Francisco, and I crossed over to Oakland and I was taken to Grinnell College. And on that train, a kind gentleman sat next to me or in front of me and said, "Where are you going?" And I said, "I'm going east." Says, "East, where?" I said, "To Grinnell College in Iowa." He said, "Son, Iowa is not the east." I remember that, that's about the only thing. And I must have changed trains in Des Moines to go to Grinnell, on the Rock Island Rocket, it was called, they woke me up at three a.m. and said, "Son, this is your stop." The conductor was very nice, "This is your stop." I got off, and the whole freshman year class was there at three o'clock in the morning to welcome me. So they really wanted to take you. The reason I went to Grinnell, never having heard of the institution, is that the Quakers had started, they had the Fellowship of Reconciliation, and was offering colleges for college students, Japanese college students to go to several schools that would accept them, and I believe we were one of the first if not the first two girls from Los Angeles, Barbara Takahashi, who was as bright as she was beautiful, she was, actually, she was from Hawaii, and Aki Hosoi from Los Angles, she was fifth in our class, Barbara was first, and William Keiyasu, father's a doctor, he was a sophomore in Berkeley. And his family received, I think all three of them got a scholarship, and they needed a fourth to match the group, two boys and two girls. So all of a sudden I'm told to go, "You're going to go to Grinnell." I said, "Where's that?" and they told me. So I said, "Pay tuition, room and board," which was pretty good by today's standards. Room and board, tuition was a thousand dollars. My sister paid for that, then two days before I left, she took me to the Bank of America on Fillmore and Post, took out seven hundred dollars, and that's what I used for change money. I never asked for a penny after that. Of course, the reason was that I worked through Grinnell and Michigan, so I worked all the time. There were always jobs available, because it was wartime. Of course, paid twenty-five cents an hour, but that was a lot of money in those days.

And then when I came home, when I knew I was going to Berkeley, so I entered Berkeley for my third year, and I was given, we were all given one year for every year of service, GI Bill, and the other year, so I had three year, I saved that. And on the third year, I saw the announcement, the board announcement that this is the last day for applying for medical school. So I applied though I was only in third year, so they let me in the third year, and I used every bit of the GI Bill, and I got microscopes, a small stipend, and all textbooks, which is unimaginable today, to pay for all that. So everything that happened to me was luck. Well, anyway...

PW: What was the environment like in Iowa? What was the town like and the jobs you did?

HS: Well, I never had any problems because Grinnell, the city of Grinnell was about fourteen thousand population. I avoided it, and I'm sure the school was very careful how they assigned rooms for room and board. I lived in, well, first year students, the men, in a building called Reid Hall, and we were in the basement. Each of us had individual rooms, but they were interconnected with the other two neighbors from next door. And the people that were next door to me were marvelous kids, and I'm sure they were selected for that purpose. So two of them became professors, one was a minister's son, and all he did was play Stravinsky, so I learned a bit about music, he'd have that all the time. They all died before me, Al Greeley, Jack Hartley, Phil Hailey. Phil Hailey was the brightest of them, he had a scholarship. He became professor of philosophy at (Weslyan)... anyway, it was a big school, it wasn't ivy league, but it was in Connecticut. He wrote a book about the Jews, and there were Protestant (Hugenots), and I can't think of the name now, it was about how they protected the Jews in France. There's a special name for the Protestants that protected the Jews.

PW: I'm curious, going back to San Francisco, you left two days after your family. Did you go with them to the civil control station to watch them go to Tanforan, or what happened to you?

HS: No, I did not. I went to the Tanimuras and stayed with them, they took care of me.

PW: So while you're in Iowa, so I understand you took the train and went up to Iowa and were in school, were you corresponding with family and who? Who did you write to or what was that like?

HS: I'd write my sisters and my brothers, I'd write frequently, and they would tell me what was going on. But it was all by mail.

PW: Did they share anything that was difficult or do you think they were telling you the reality of their conditions or were they kind of soft?

HS: Well, I lost, it was a postcard, Katsu drew a picture of a horse in a stable where they were living. He was very good in doing cartoons and drawings. I know I have it somewhere, I couldn't find it.

<End Segment 5> - Copyright © 2019 Densho. All Rights Reserved.