<Begin Segment 14>

JD: At the end of the war, how did you all get back to Bainbridge Island, and how did you meet up, meet up with your dad again?

FK: You know, my father said before he came to pick us up, he decided he'd go to the island and check it out. He wanted to know if it was... if the climate was okay. I don't think he meant the weather. But he said he came here and was riding the ferry. He said there was some people who, when they saw him, turned their backs on him and refused to acknowledge him. And then there were some other people who said, "Hi Frank, it's good to see you back." I mean, it's been about three and a half years. He said Mrs. Williams, Genevieve Williams, who lived on Fletchers Bay, she was a... I remember her. She was a very unusual woman. She used to smoke a pipe and you didn't see very many women smoking pipes in those days. And had this real deep, gruff voice -- but, he said Mrs. Williams came with him, and he was sure it was to make sure no one harassed him. And I've heard other stories from other people on the island, too, like Kay Nakao said that Mrs. Williams and her husband protected them when they first came back, too. So, so he decided it was fine to come back. So he came back after us in our, in his, in our car, and we all piled up into the car and came back. And we were, I think we were the second family back on the island. I think the Takemotos came back in June sometime and we came back in July sometime. It was before the war was over. They started letting us out of concentration camp before the war was over. And I think largely that was because there was a case in front of the Supreme Court that the government knew they were gonna lose and that they would have to let us out anyways.

JD: Well, in July, the war in Europe was over.

FK: Yeah, but not the one in Japan. Right.

<End Segment 14> - Copyright © 2007 Densho. All Rights Reserved.