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PW: I'm kind of curious about just your friends and what you guys did and what you did for fun.

HS: Well, in camp, we just, they had races, they had all kinds of things that they had for the kids. And you know, they were older, maybe teenagers or adults would do all kinds of things to keep us happy and busy. But when we went back to the farm, we didn't have friends, it was just the three of us. And so we could only do what we could... you know, we could do among the three of us. So we used to play jacks, you know jacks, you remember those? We used to play jacks and we did, played marbles maybe. We used to have a bathhouse, so we used to throw a ball that was like a dodgeball, and we used to throw it over the bathhouse. And if somebody wanted to... if I threw it over to Florence and she caught it, she could come around and throw it at me, and if she hits me, then she won. That kind of thing. And I can't remember any other games we played, but that's one thing that I do remember that we played as kids.

PW: Describe what a bathhouse experience would be like?

HS: Yeah, the bathhouse was really something. Because it's not fair, but I was the oldest child, oldest one. So we had a wooden bathtub with a wooden float that, with a metal bottom so that you warm up the water, and then you got the float that went down to the bottom to keep you from getting burned, and that was our bath. And so I was in charge of heating from underneath the bath water.

PW: How did you do that?

HS: I had to use whatever wood, paper, and then with the drier wood, and then I'd have to put small logs in to keep the, to warm up the bath water. And I had to make sure that it didn't get too hot, so I'd have to tend to that to make sure that I got the wood from under for making... because then I would have to add cold water and that would be a waste of water. So that was my one chore that I had when I was there, when we lived there.

PW: How did you get your water, too? Was this something that you had a spigot?

HS: I have a feeling that we did, because the water level had to be pretty high, so we must have had a hose or something to bring water from a certain source to get water into the bathtub. And in the same bathhouse, my mother had a washing machine. But she used to wash most of it in a large washtub with those wash, what do you call that? You know, where you had the metal...

PW: Washboard?

HS: Washboard, and she did most of the washing from that. But eventually -- and I don't know whether she used the, I don't recall her using the washing machine, but we had an old washing machine. And I know that when she washed, she would put it through the rollers to get it dry as possible and then hang it up. But yeah, that's what we had in the bathhouse, too. Not only the bath, but also the washing machine, which, as I said, I'm not sure whether she used it as a washing machine, but we used a roller to dry.

PW: You had to deal with the bath every single night?

HS: Yeah, I think so. That was a chore. It's not fair. [Laughs] Like I said, my sisters didn't have to do any of that.

PW: But that all changed when you moved to Sacramento?

HS: Yeah, right. And then we had an outhouse, we didn't have an indoor toilet. And once in a while we had to go, you know, at nighttime. And my sisters and I lived, we all were sleeping in the same room. So when one of us really wanted to go shi shi, we had to go outside. And whether it was cold or not, we'd have to run to the toilet. So we'd wake somebody up and say, "I have to go," and they'd get a flashlight and make sure that you got down and went to the bathroom. So that was our experience. That's not a pleasant experience, but that's what we did to go to the toilet.

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