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HM: Along came the war. Along came the bombing of Pearl Harbor. I was too young to really realize what was going on. I was in kindergarten, and kindergarten was a happy place for me. Joe Sievertson would drive his bus and we'd chug along down, and we'd pick up the route and all these people along the way. I'd go to Pleasant Beach school and have a good time playing and learning how to get along and, more or less, learning English on the way because I spoke mostly Japanese before I went into school. Those were very happy days for me. Ms. Heffner -- who was our, Ellen Heffner, who was our teacher at that time -- when I left for camp gave me two books. One was a Raggedy Ann book and one was the House that Jack Built. I kind of memorized those books and kept them, but I think they got lost somewhere along the line. Now, so those were kind of days like that. You know, I didn't worry about the war, because our parents and Sub and Miyan kind of kept those things from us children. I really didn't know what was going on. I knew that Uncle Sub would be going out someplace for meetings and things. And then I don't even remember the day that the FBI came for my father. He is an Issei and they have dynamite and they had rifles and shotguns and we had a radio, but it was just a receiver set like a Philco big console radio type of stuff in it. It had a shortwave band on it, but we could only receive and not send. Those were the things were contraband, what they called contraband to us, or to the government. Whereas other families that lived on the island had the same things but it was not contraband for them. It was just normal everyday stuff that they had to make a living or to survive. Anyway, my father was taken away. This was in March. I remember a letter he had written to my mother. She was standing outside reading this letter by the woodbox and she was crying. I had never seen her cry before. So I thought... so I asked her, "What's the matter?" And she said, "Oh, nothing." She said, "I'm just happy to hear from him." And so that was the extent of my knowing what my, that my father was away.

Then, when, when the roundup came, everyone was busy. I don't really remember that very much either because, again, you know, too young. In kindergarten, what do you know? Parents were a little bit more reserved and kept things from the children. We didn't have... we had radio, but we didn't really listen to it that much. It's not like today where you can get instant news, instant killing, instant suicide bombings, things that you see every day, even for the little kids, vividly on television. Things were a lot different then than it is now. When, when that roundup came, I think we were taken on a truck. And I believe that the Kitamotos came to our house also, Shigeko and her family. Her husband was also taken away. So we all went to Eagledale. I remember seeing a lot of people there and a lot of people up on the hillside. I heard later on from one of the second grade teachers that my kindergarten teacher had also ridden her bike down to see us off. So that's what I remember specifically about that along with the soldiers. Then walking down onto the, onto the ferry. It was really, really an exciting time for me because we got to ride on the ferry. We knew we were going to Seattle. In those days it was a treat to go into Seattle. We might have gone in maybe once or twice a year. We got on the ferry and I was running around with all the other little kids. I didn't even notice the adults and how they were reacting or feeling because I was so busy running around. When we got off the ferry we got onto a train. There was a train waiting for us. I thought, "My gosh, we get to ride a train." And so we got onto the train and the soldiers were there. We got our seats and they were walking down. The soldiers were so nice to us. They read us books. There was one with a guitar and he sang us songs. They really helped us children feel safe. I mean, I didn't feel unsafe at all. They were so kind. They spoke a little funny because they were from New Jersey. They had this accent, but they were so kind to us. Then on the train also, we had a Pullman car, so some of us little kids were able to sleep on the Pullman. So, of course, I claimed one of the top bunks and I made my sister get off, out of that bunk, and she had to sleep on the bottom. I was kind of a bratty kid... not kind of. But I was a bratty kid at that time and I had a mind of my own. Anyway, we got... so we slept overnight there and we got off. I remember the blinds had to be down.

<End Segment 3> - Copyright © 2007 Densho. All Rights Reserved.