<Begin Segment 29>

BK: During the time that you folks were separated, did you have any contact with your father while you were in Puyallup, Minidoka, and he was in New Mexico?

JT: I think I might have written him a few letters, not too many, I think, in Lordsburg. And he'd write back occasionally, but I don't remember receiving too many letters. We did hear -- I can't remember how we heard -- but we heard that when he was Lordsburg, he became seriously ill with a kidney failure type of thing. So the army doctors sent him to Fort Sam Houston in Texas for his... they had to have an infected -- removed his kidney and part of another, so he had just enough to function on, I think you might say. And, but he recovered from that okay, and that was just before he came home. He came back from Lordsburg into Minidoka. And I just can't remember what year that was when they came back, when everybody came back. I talked to Frank about it and he says that part is a blank for him, too, he said. But it was prior to leaving and we left in 1945, wasn't it? I believe, '45, camp I think it closed down.

BK: If you can remember back, how was it to have your father back into your life again?

JT: Well, it just seemed pretty natural. He was, course, very, more than happy, ecstatic to be back again and join the family. And he just, we kind of just all, it just kind of all blended together. But I think it wasn't too long before actually, before camp closed, which was in 1945, so we didn't have too much, we didn't have too much time together in camp. But I remember he was there for a while because the living situation had to be expanded a little bit. [Laughs] And he worked as a cook, as I say, and so, so we were all, then my sister's family was together, and our family was together and my brother was there, too -- what little we saw of him. He was gone so much of the time that I didn't see him all that much.

BK: What changes did you note in your father?

JT: My father was... well, I think he was more carefree. As my mother would say, he was not a person who really liked work all that much. [Laughs] He would rather be out playing with the fellows or I wouldn't say he was a playboy because he had to work to keep the family going, but he was very glad to be out and just seemed to settle -- he liked his job a lot, too. He liked that cooking and he was well enough to continue doing that, and his operation was all very successful. And so he just fit right back into the family life again. And he was happy when he was with the grandchildren, my nieces and nephews, and he'd take care, play with them. And he and my sister's oldest daughter, they're just baseball freaks so all they could talk about when they got together was... Rose knew all of the batting averages of different players and the two of them would get together. I hated baseball at that point. But my dad loved baseball. From the time we were little, I remember him listening to the radio and I couldn't listen to my favorite programs like the Hit Parade and all that type of stuff. So baseball to me was just a nuisance. [Laughs]

<End Segment 29> - Copyright © 1997 Densho. All Rights Reserved.