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BY: Okay. So tell about your arrival at Pinedale.

MK: I felt like it was a big great trip, because I got to travel, I'd never been out of Hood River except Portland. And so for me, it was very exciting. But I know that we were sad in some ways, but I enjoyed it.

BY: What did you think of Pinedale when you got there?

MK: Well, I thought, oh my goodness, like an army camp, what you think about an army camp, made after, like an army camp, you know.

BY: Frances, do you remember anything about when you got to Pinedale, what your thoughts or feelings were?

FN: Well, I don't know whether it was my imagination or whether I heard it or not, but I thought my folks had to go and stuff the mattresses with straw. But I don't know whether that happened to us or whether I read about it, I don't know.

BY: I don't know about Pinedale, but that did happen at many of the assembly centers. Do you remember anything about the weather or the landscape or anything like that?

FN: I don't remember anything.

BY: And where did you live in Pinedale?

MK: Fifteen-something, I think. I used to know it all.

BY: Tell the story about getting separated from the other Mosier people.

MK: Oh, when I got ready to move to Tule Lake from Pinedale, we got ready to move to Tule Lake from Pinedale, we ended up with people from Kent and Auburn and that area because one of the Enumclaw families got sick, and they couldn't go. So I don't know how they chose us, but we had enough people to correspond to their family. So we ended up with the Auburn and Kent, Enumclaw and all those people, Seattle way. So the Hood River people ended up way up in Block 49, was it, way back, while we ended up in Block 53 with Seattle-area people. So we got to know a lot of Kent and Auburn, Enumclaw, Tacoma.

BY: And tell the story about graduating from high school.

TI: Why don't you give some context. We're at Pinedale?

BY: Yeah, so we're in Pinedale. Mary is a high school senior when she is removed from her home, and so she hasn't graduated from high school yet.

MK: When we went to Pinedale, when we got there... anyhow, they gave us a graduation ceremony in Pinedale for everybody that moved there. And they seemed to have, they got diplomas from all their schools, you know. And they got us all caps and gowns, kind of not red, but more mauve type of gowns, and caps and gowns and the whole bit. And we got, they named each one of us and we had to go there and get it. But they got those caps and gowns from Fresno State College. And so we all got diplomas. And there was lots of valedictorians and salutatorians out of, but I think Homer would remember because he was there, too, you know. I forgot how many there was, but there were so many. But I remember Tacoma and all those people that were there, they all got named the salutatorian or valedictorian or honorable mention, you know. It was exciting. [Laughs]

BY: Frances, do you remember anything else about Pinedale?

FN: No.

BY: Okay, so nothing about Pinedale.

<End Segment 11> - Copyright © 2022 Densho. All Rights Reserved.