<Begin Segment 20>

SU: Never seeing my husband, because he was so busy from morning 'til night, and I just figured this isn't the place for us to raise our children. So I wrote to the president of the Baptist Missionary Training School in Chicago. And I told her, "We're, I'm sick of camp. I'd like to get out." And we were able to get out if you had a sponsor, someone who could sponsor you. So she found a good Baptist minister and his family who lived up in a suburb called Winnetka. And they were willing to take us. So my mother and the two children and I, the four of us, left camp to start a new life in the Chicago area.

BK: How did you feel leaving your husband behind?

SU: Well, see, he had volunteered for 442. So I knew eventually, he'd be getting into the army. Eventually, we'd have to say goodbye to each other, anyway. But he never did get called, in the end. We don't know the reason. They didn't give us any reason. But anyway, he stayed behind in camp 'til we had settled ourselves in Winnetka, and he finally joined us.

BK: Oh, okay. So here you are, again, a mother with two little babies, and your mother, and you're forging ahead to Winnetka. Can you tell us a little bit more about your life when you got there?

SU: Well, I remember the day we arrived from Chicago to Winnetka, we took a train. And I thought it was gonna end on a platform, train platform. But when the train let us off -- here in Winnetka, the trains are going underground, like. And on both sides of the station is a steep, steep thing, and with a long stairway. So I remember leaving my mother with the two children and all, with luggage, running up the stairs, found a cab. And the cab driver helped us load it ourselves on that thing. And found our home. And, but that was a wonderful home. They had four children of their own. And they lent us the upstairs bedrooms. So we were able to get in there. In fact, later on, when other friends were coming out of camp, I'd invite them to stay overnight with us. So we shared together. And Winnetka, as someone knows, is a very wealthy suburb. So we were able to get membership in the city pool, city-run pool, and they welcomed us in the church.

BK: So at that time, you didn't encounter any discrimination. It sounded like you were welcomed with open arms.

SU: Uh-huh. Not at all. I mean, we were just, as I said, very fortunate in that. Well, maybe they felt sorry for a Japanese woman, short as I was, with two little babies.

BK: Were most of them aware of the circumstances under which you had come to Winnetka?

SU: Well, I never did ask the Chicago people. But later on, when we lived in Boston, those people didn't know anything about evacuation. It just didn't appear in the papers, I don't think. So after about few months, let's see, I went there in about May, June, July, I think we stayed there about six months in Winnetka. And I had enrolled my daughter in kindergarten there at a very famous liberal school called Crow Island School, elementary school in Winnetka, which was well known for its innovative educational methods. So she was there for about six months. And then, by that time, she was five years old.

And then my husband came and joined us after so many months. And then we decided to look for work. And we're fortunate that in Chicago, in the employment office, was, there were, Reverend Andrews was there, and Floyd Schmoe. He was there. And then another person called Reverend John Thomas, who was instrumental in helping young people out of camp to go to colleges. That was his thing. But anyway, we knew all three of them. So they found a job for us -- I mean, for Chick, as boy's worker in an Italian, what they called settlement house, in Boston, right in the middle of the Italian neighborhood. And we stayed in Boston 'til we found a home in Hyde Park, which is a suburb of Boston.

BK: So you were in the Boston area, then, from November of '43, through -- at least through the end of the war? Again, what were you --

SU: 1947.

BK: Oh, okay. And how were you, how was your experience in Boston?

SU: We found a home -- well, we went to Boston, too, because Chick's cousins were there. They had been there from before war, because their son and their brother had gone to MIT in Boston. And so the family all joined. So we knew that they were there. In fact, we had visited them on our honeymoon trip years before. And so we, they found a place for us, a home, and, but no furnitures. I tell you that Baptist people just all chipped in. Somebody gave us kitchen sets, another dining room set, living room, and all the beds we needed. So we didn't have to buy any furniture at all. And they welcomed us to their church, which was very strange, because we're not used to it -- in Seattle, at least among the Japanese Baptists -- each one had a pew-like place where their families always sat there every Sunday for generations. I mean, these, this church was really old. But, and the pastor was getting along there, but he needed a secretary. So I worked in the, gave me a job right away to work in his office, and, while my husband was working for the Italian settlement as an athletic director.

BK: Right. Right. And then your mother was still with you?

SU: Uh-huh. My mother who was widow was with us.

BK: Right. Right.

SU: My brother, in the meantime, had gotten a job in Indiana, Indianapolis, I -- no, Detroit, working for a dairy.

BK: Oh.

SU: So he found his job right away, too.

BK: So did he leave camp early, also?

SU: No. I don't think so, because I had to leave them behind. My mother, too. Well, someone had to take -- no, I took my mother with me.

BK: Right. Right.

SU: He stayed behind, but I don't know when he left.

<End Segment 20> - Copyright © 1998 Densho. All Rights Reserved.