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PW: Roughly how long did your family stay in Rohwer?

HS: Rohwer, we were there from, I think we were fairly early on, so it was, Pearl Harbor was 1941, December. So I'm sure that by the middle of 1942, I think we were already in Rohwer. Of course, went to the assembly center fairgrounds, we weren't there long. So certainly by the end of '42, we would have been in Rohwer. And we left Rohwer, well, after the war. The war ended in '45, I think, and so I think that was fairly soon afterwards that we came back to Linden, we went back to Linden so it would be the end of '45, maybe.

PW: And your baachan and jiichan were still okay?

HS: Yeah, they were okay. Yeah, my grandmother was tough, yes. My grandfather, because of his stroke, I would say he probably was not tough, but he managed to get around with a cane. So my picture of my grandfather always, is always with a cane, yeah. That's my picture of my grandfather always.

PW: So did you all go out at the same time or did your father leave early?

HS: Well, I don't know that, I don't know that. I don't remember the train ride back, I don't recall that. I remember the train ride going, but I don't remember the train ride back. During the time that we were in camp, they started releasing people earlier for either schooling or just because they had a family that may not have been on the West Coast, because the West Coast is where they tried to get people out. So if you had some uncle or aunt in Colorado, you might have been allowed to leave early to go there. But we, as I recall, we went back to Linden together. That's the way I remember it, yes. I mean, that's all I can say because I don't recall the train ride back, but I think we did.

PW: And when you got back to Linden, did your life pretty much resume as normal? Because you had a place to live, you knew what kind of work you would do.

HS: Right, right. Yeah, we... when we came back to Linden I was going to the same school my dad did, Delphi school. So I know that we used to... Florence and I, I remember Florence and I did bike to school for three miles. But Marge was on the back of my bike, and so I had to pump Marge to and from home to Delphi school. And one funny thing was that when it was raining, my mother would worry about us, she didn't want us to get all wet, you know. So she would bring the truck so we could put the bicycles on a truck and take us home. But we didn't trust my mother driving, so we told my mother, "Go home, go home, we're going to pump on the bikes and come home." [Laughs] So my poor mother comes out and at least that happened on one occasion, maybe more than once. But we told our mom, "We don't trust your driving," kawaisoni. So that's vivid in my mind about what happened with my mom and her driving. They didn't take... they didn't have DMV and you didn't get a license, right? So my father didn't either, but my father had been driving a car and tractors and all kinds of things on the farm, so he was fine.

PW: Describe your school to me.

HS: Delphi school?

PW: Yeah, Delphi school and who the students were.

HS: Delphi school was, as I said, about three miles away. It was a three-room school, and it had three levels. So I think it probably went from first to third and maybe third through fifth, maybe. I don't know. And then basically up to eighth grade. So I would say that our education was probably, I mean, I'm sure we had books and paper and pencils and all that, but can't say we probably had the best education possible when we were in Linden. And I would have eventually, we would have eventually ended up in high school like my dad did. But we moved to Sacramento, so I continued my own education at Lincoln elementary and Lincoln junior high school. And then in my, just following what I did, going to Lincoln junior high school, and then because of moving in Sacramento, went first to, the first year I went to, my first high school year was at Sacramento High School, and then I ended up, my last four, three years in McClatchy High School in Sacramento.

<End Segment 9> - Copyright © 2022 Densho. All Rights Reserved.