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TI: Why don't we, why don't we move on to Minidoka right now. And why don't you talk about, sort of the transition. How, how did you go from Puyallup to Minidoka and, and in terms of what phase, were you, did you leave early, the mid part or later?

HM: Well when they opened up the Minidoka, my brother volunteered for the advance crew because he was, he had some electrical capabilities. And they decided they could use him because they said that they wanted to get some assistance in the electrical pumping system. They had a whole bunch of water wells, I guess. And so consequently my brother volunteered for that. And unfortunately prior to that they sold off all the vehicles for, for the public auctioning of the vehicles and the people inside the camp weren't allowed to bid of course. And they sold my brother's vehicle for $10 and they gave him the $10 and he was really heartbroken. I, I'd never seen him so despondent before or after that. But anyway he, he left early for Minidoka. And when we got there he was waiting for us when we arrived at the spur. He had advance knowledge of when we were coming. And the place was a huge dust storm area and the only thing you could see was a big cloud of dust on the horizon and that's where the camp was. And when we got to our block, which was Block 19, the water facilities weren't running. So my brother was trying to expedite the water system so that we could at least have water in the block. But they were hard pressed to keep up with the increasing demands of the, incoming population. And the barracks weren't completely finished, there was all kinds or problems, and there was... huge piles of lumber across the street from the block. And everything was in a huge chaos and then the winds would come up and create all kinds of dust conditions that were very difficult to put up with. But the conditions at Minidoka were kind of different I guess from other places like -- I had listened to people from Heart Mountain. And they had all their school buildings built. They had a gymnasium built. In Minidoka's case they hardly built anything other than the sewage facility, which was not complete at that time. And they hadn't built all the structures for all the barracks. So consequently it was a chaotic mess.

<End Segment 4> - Copyright © 1998 Densho. All Rights Reserved.