<Begin Segment 1>

DG: Okay, we're just going to start real easy here and go back to the time period right before the war, and can you tell me about your family then?

FH: I didn't realize there would be war, no way. But Uncle Frank came one Sunday morning, there was no television in those days, just the radio. He says, "Japan started a war, Pearl Harbor," we couldn't believe it. And sure enough, when he turned on the radio, it was blasting off, saying that Japan started the war. And I thought, "Well, what for? Japan's so small, you know you can't win the war." But it had happened, and we were unhappy and scared for all day, Sunday. And I just couldn't believe it. We were scared, we were scared for my mother and father in Japan. We thought we're American, we have nothing to be scared, be worried about, we're American citizens. But life must go on. It was hard, very hard. My children were young, and I'd just found out I was pregnant again, and I was afraid for myself. I had my husband, he's a citizen, but my brother-in-law, they were all soon afterward taken to Missoula. And after that, things started happening, that we had to evacuate. And one day, we didn't have to, just the citizens could stay, and so my husband kept working in the farm. Was, berries were almost ready to harvest and we were looking for that, because all these years he had to pay for equipments and tractors. And this crop we might come ahead a little bit. But we lost everything, and we went to the camp.

DG: Can I back up a little bit? Can you tell me when you heard about Japan bombing Pearl Harbor? Who was with you that day, and describe a little more how you felt.

FH: I just know what we read in the paper, that's all.

DG: And who came and told you?

FH: What?

DG: Who came and told you about the bombing?

FH: On the radio, yeah.

DG: On the radio, you heard? And what did you think was going to happen after that?

FH: Well, I didn't think it'll last even, even one year, because U.S. is a lot stronger than Japan, and I didn't know too much about Japan anyway.

DG: Had you been following the war before that, the war in Europe?

FH: Well, not too much.

<End Segment 1> - Copyright © 2006 Densho. All Rights Reserved.