<Begin Segment 18>

DG: Did you get any special foods at all?

SS: Nope, nope. You got the regular camp food.

DG: What was that, do you remember?

SS: Mostly fish. Right? Sardine, was it? That, they used to serve a lot.

DG: Maybe it was different at different camps. I heard that, some of the others, of people were tired of Vienna sausage and that kind of stuff, but you guys got fish.

SS: Oh, we didn't get Vienna sausage that I can think of. We had fish that people didn't care much. We had stew...

DG: So then, when you went back home, did you have to go to the mess hall to eat?

SS: That's right, there's no...

DG: Even when you were sick...

SS: That's right...

DG: And then, to go to the bathroom you had to...?

SS: Yeah, outside, right, community bathroom... showers that had no doors, toilets that had no doors.

DG: When you were in hospital, you had to go out to the bathroom, too?

SS: No, because I was, they kept me in bed so, they brought the bedpan, I don't remember the toilets in the hospital.

DG: What did you do with your time in those...

SS: When?

DG: To while away your time?

SS: In Jerome...? Or in the hospital?

DG: In the hospital and after, in your family?

SS: I guess, read because I always liked to read. So, my parents must have brought some reading material for me but....

DG: What did your parents do? Did they work?

SS: Uh-huh, my mom was a waitress in the mess hall and my dad was a dishwasher. And when he was able to, he became a cook, assistant cook, 'cause he used to cook a long time ago.

DG: Right.

SS: But, for that they got paid sixteen dollars a month.

DG: This was in Jerome now?

SS: Jerome. And they did the same kind of work in Tule Lake, too, where we went.

<End Segment 18> - Copyright © 1998 Densho. All Rights Reserved.