<Begin Segment 8>

TI: I thought we'd just kind of have her walk through, like, breakfast and school.

MK: Oh, yes. We'd eat breakfast. We didn't have electricity then, so we had those little gas flames, propane, and so Mom would make us breakfast, like eggs, and then get us ready for school. And we met the school bus, oh, about a mile up the road where Mosier's highway connected with our ranch, so we we'd walk up to the highway and wait for the bus. And we were about the last ones to get on the bus, because the bus driver would go all around the back country of Mosier because there were a lot of orchards back there, too, you know. So then we'd get on the bus and go to school and study.

BY: And what did you do after school?

MK: As we grew up, we'd play baseball and basketball and all that, recess. Then when I got in high school, I got to be on the team. I wasn't very good, but I got on the team. And the rest of them were good, so we won a championship for Wasco County that year. But I was mostly a sub. [Laughs]

BY: That's fun that girls got to play basketball, that's pretty cool. So, Frances, what was, you must have just started school when the war came. So what do you remember about going to school or your activities?

FN: I don't remember too much about going to school. But I remember going out to meet the bus and Kingo Kanemasu would put me on his back and carry me up the hill to meet the bus. And I think when I talked to Homer Yasui, he said, "That was over a mile that you had to walk," and I says, "(Yes)." And so I think when I was young, I was too little to walk a mile.

BY: And Kingo Kanemasu was the son of one of the other families. How much older was he than you?

FN: Well, Kingo was probably eleven years older than me. Because my sister is ten years older than I am.

BY: So he didn't go to school then? Or why was he carrying you on his back to meet the school bus?

FN: Because he was going to school, too.

BY: Oh, I see. So he would just take you up there.

TI: He was an older student.

BY: I see, okay.

FN: So I couldn't walk too much longer, I guess.

BY: Oh, that was when you started school, he would take you on... okay, I understand. And we talked about your friends, but did you have any non-Japanese friends?

MK: Yes. School, classmates, people below us, because were all in that one room school, first grade through high school senior, twelve. And so, yes, 4-H club and all that, we'd go to your house for a meeting and all that.

BY: So talk about Japanese language school, undokai and sewing club.

MK: Oh, yes. We used to have Mr. Inoue, Isaac Inoue, as our Japanese teacher, but he was a Methodist minister who had come to America to try to get more education, to get a degree. He wanted to go to Yale, but no money. So anyhow, he took, teaching Japanese to the Hood River and come to Mosier to help us go to school. Then he'd teach us Japanese on Saturdays and some other weekdays that he'd come over and we'd study Japanese.

BY: And did you ever go to Japanese school?

MK: No, I didn't.

BY: Okay, you were too young. How about undokai? Do you remember undokai?

MK: Oh, yeah. There was a beach by us. We had a little lake there on the ranch, and right over the railroad track on the other side, there's the Columbia River, and so like Mr. Masuo Yasui would let us go to that beach to have the undokai, and we had races and all kind of fun things.

BY: Can you describe --

MK: It was right by our ranch, you know. So that's what we did, it's just fun.

BY: Frances, do you remember undokai at all?

FN: No. All I remember is a bunch of people and sliding down the sand dunes and everything like that.

BY: Now, were you the one who told the story about people swimming across the river?

FN: I did.

BY: Okay, tell that story.

FN: I really don't know who it was, and they did swim across the river, and had to come back, so that's about two miles that they had to swim.

BY: And did that happen at undokai or was that just something...

FN: I think it was at one of the...

BY: So let's talk a little bit about religion. Did your family practice any religion, and if so, what?

MK: Oh, we used to go to, Mr. Inoue was the Methodist minister. And so we used to go most Sundays, drive to Hood River to go to the... they had a Japanese meeting house built there. And so they'd have meetings or whenever they had Japanese gathering of some kind, you know, we'd go there. But then the folks, older folks, would have a Buddhist minister from Portland come to Hood River at that Japanese meeting house. And so, yeah, so it was a Buddhist or Methodist ministry.

BY: But your family was Christian?

FN: Buddhist.

BY: Buddhist.

FN: My folks were Buddhist.

BY: But you would go to the Methodist church?

FN: I don't remember going to church at all. [Laughs]

<End Segment 8> - Copyright © 2022 Densho. All Rights Reserved.