<Begin Segment 22>

AI: Now, while you were in Pinedale, then, your father did reunite with you.

RT: Yes, sometime after the Fourth of July, I believe. All I know is that the poor man came into camp with winter clothes. And it was so hot, but that's all he had. But he did come back to our family, and it was in July, and I would guess that it was probably after the 4th, maybe toward the middle of July. He doesn't remember the exact date either. All I know is that it was almost unbelievable to see him come back. It was quite an event for him to return. Yeah.

AI: Did he say very much about what he'd been through?

RT: No. No. He maybe told my mother. He may have, but I don't know.

AI: But not to you, the kids?

RT: No, he did not say much of anything about what he had gone through. It was only much later that we found out the kind of life that he had to lead, and we didn't even know about the hearings that he had to go through, this hearing, in order for him to be released. And I think it's many, many years since that we have heard and learned what his existence was.

AI: Did he seem changed to you after he came back?

RT: Well, now, I think he was the same as far as his basic character. He might have been a little quiet when he first came in, but he was still our dad. He made sure we... [Laughs] And I think he was just a little appalled at the kind of existence we had in the camp. I'm almost sure that between the days that he had in Pinedale and then when we moved to Tule Lake, and he saw what was going on, and the fact that we no longer really were a family unit that... like meals, we ate with our friends. We wouldn't sit down as a family really. And I think that must have been part of what swayed my mother and father to decide that this was no way to raise a family.

<End Segment 22> - Copyright © 1998 Densho. All Rights Reserved.