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BN: Was there, did you notice any kind of difference once you were back in school, once the war had started?

JK: Uh-huh. Yeah, I think about two months later, we were... because Punahou couldn't reopen right away because the engineers, military engineers took over the campus. And so they had to find places for us to go to school. So that's mostly my experience. I remember that the first place we were placed was in a private home. People offered their homes, and I found the home that we were at, our class was put in. You know in Manoa Marketplace, across the street is the fire station? It's the house right behind the fire station. And so we went to school there, had card tables in their living room, and then finally we were all moved to the University of Hawaii, their brand-new preschool buildings, and they had never used them yet, but they allowed us to be there. And we were there in the preschool buildings and then Wist Hall for high school. And then we finally returned to the Punahou campus after the war.

BN: Maybe we touched on this a little before when we were talking about the little change in the social circles once you hit sixth, seventh grade. Did you notice a different attitude towards the Japanese students from the majority once, kind of, war has broken out?

JK: That's a good question. You know, I think we had an exceptional teacher. In fact, when I was thinking about my whole education, you always wonder who was your favorite teacher and so forth. And I keep coming back to that teacher because that was, from February on, she was our sixth grade teacher. And I saw her once later, much, much later in life, and I said, "You know," I told her, "that time that we were in your class, that was my favorite year." And she gave me this strange look, and I thought, "I wonder why." I mean, did I do something wrong? But I realized later that when they were forced to move out of Punahou, they were moved out. And I don't think any of them had time to go and gather all the books they needed, or for PE, the balls and bats they needed. They didn't have anything, they just were moved out. And this teacher was so creative, that's why I remember that year so vividly. For one thing, for health and science, I guess, she found two goats, a male and a female, and she convinced them that it was okay to raise them in that brand new, behind that brand new preschool. And then they had a baby. So I was talking to my friend, and I said, "You know, look at the baby," and where did it come from, and all that. And she said, "You dummy." And I said, "What do you mean?" and she said, "Don't you remember last year when the doctor came?" And I said, "Yeah, I remember the doctor." But I wondered why she had all these fishes swimming across the blackboard. [Laughs] And then my friend said, "Now you know." And I said, "Oh, that's why." So I learned... well, that was a significant learning. And then for language arts, she asked us, she said, "Gee, I'm going to give you, we're going to do this together, everybody. A vowel and a consonant, what word would you put down?" And we'd all put down a word, and we went from there to A to Z that way. And then finally she told us, "Now you know the Morse code. Just turn all your vowels into dots and your consonants into dashes," and I thought that was so neat. And then she said, then for PE, no equipment, just the dirt ground outside of UH. And she said, "Okay, how many of you have marbles?" and of course we all had marbles. She said, "Okay, bring your marbles, we're going to have a marble tournament." That was our PE. Because we could dig holes in the dirt. So, and then for dramatic, she wanted to do a play, but no props. So she said she found a play where we were the props. And so this big husky kid in our class who later became a football captain, she says, "You're the easy chair," and she threw this sheet over him. [Laughs] And so we had a ball in sixth grade, I mean, we were learning, but learning was so much fun. But she didn't believe it.

BN: Right, that's why she was so puzzled.

JK: Yeah. And she was probably figuring each night, "Now what'll I do tomorrow?" [Laughs]

BN: What was her name?

JK: Naomi St. Dennis. She became a state level specialist.

BN: She left Punahou and joined the state.

JK: Uh-huh, yes. And that was when I told her, because I was in the DOE, I told her how much her class had meant to me, and she couldn't believe it. I think it was her horrible year.

BN: But obviously made a big impact.

JK: It made a big insight, yeah.

<End Segment 7> - Copyright © 2022 Densho. All Rights Reserved.