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EG: Okay. And now you're living at Puyallup fairgrounds. Do you have any special recollections of things happening there, important to you as a youngster?

PT: I just remember the shock of seeing the bathroom facility. It was just holes cut into a plank, and there were no stalls to speak of. So, if we had to sit for any period of time especially in the evening when it was dark, we would say, "Oh, can we turn off the light?" [Laughs] But we were fortunate enough to be able to get a huge cardboard box from the mess hall. And so what we did was cut off the top and the bottom and cut off one side of it, and so we had our little portable partition, so we would carry that to the bathroom. But, of course, there were many creative, resourceful carpenters among the Japanese Americans. So they got very, very busy and got scrap lumber, and built stalls for everyone there. And that was very helpful.

EG: Did you have school at Puyallup?

PT: I don't remember attending school in Puyallup because I think that was just a temporary camp for us, while facilities at Minidoka, Idaho, were being completed. So it was within a matter of several months, I think, that we were transferred to Hunt, Idaho, or Minidoka.

<End Segment 7> - Copyright © 1998 Densho. All Rights Reserved.