Densho Digital Archive
Densho Visual History Collection
Title: Floyd Schmoe Interview II
Narrator: Floyd Schmoe
Interviewer: Elmer Good
Location: Seattle, Washington
Date: June 22, 1998
Densho ID: denshovh-sfloyd-02-0003

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EG: What can you tell me about -- let me see. Most of your work seemed to be with the people on the farms out in the Valley. Did you work with people returning to the city? And what was the attitude of people of the city when the people were coming back from the camp?

FS: There were a few people who agreed to return to Japan, but not many. There were quite a few, and about 4,000 students, and quite a few adults that we helped, American Friends Service Committee and other agencies, helped get sponsorship and jobs beyond the restricted zone. Some of those people are very wealthy now. There was one family from Bainbridge Island, [Coughs] -- excuse me -- family from Bainbridge Island, Fred Noda. Who got a job on a 300-acre apple orchard owned by a Quaker family, Tom Deque. And Tom sold Fred ten acres of the orchard, and then Tom died. And I don't know whether Fred bought or was given the rest of the orchard, a million, multimillion-dollar operation. Another girl, another person, a girl whom we, got acceptance at a Detroit Michigan University, wrote me saying that the evacuation, the resettlement, was the best thing that ever happened to her; because otherwise she would still be chopping beets in Yakima Valley. But now she was the wife of a professor at the University. The old people suffered most, loss of property and loss of a...of a feeling of security. They all had friends, but in many areas the enemies outnumbered the friends. People who had lived neighbors with Japanese family almost invariably were friendly, welcomed them back, but people who lived farther away listened to the propaganda, and the anti-Jap propaganda were still antagonistic.

<End Segment 3> - Copyright © 1998 Densho. All Rights Reserved.