<Begin Segment 24>

DG: We're trying to get an idea of Bainbridge Island community specifically before the war and after. How did your Caucasian friends react to having to say goodbye to you and what was happening to you? Do you remember conversations you had?

KN: Oh, yeah. They were very, they were very upset and sad. They couldn't believe we had to leave. Yeah, so they cried and they hugged us, and wished us luck. They didn't know where we were going so it was even hard for them, too.

DG: Were you able to keep in touch during the war?

KN: Yes, we kept in touch, uh-huh.

DG: And so what was it like to return, even though you'd been away for four-and-a-half years?

KN: Oh, it felt good to return, but you just wondered how were they going to all react. And this one, one lady, she grew up with a Japanese family at Port Blakely, and she used to go to the dances and parties with this Japanese family. But when the war broke out she just turned. And she felt bad about it later, though, she says she just kind of followed the mass hysteria, she got wrapped up in it.

DG: Were there other instances like that that you can recall?

KN: No, that's about the only one that I can recall, who was such a good friend, and all of a sudden turned, but then turned back again. So it was okay, you know. When things like that happen so fast and unexpectedly, well, you know, people get caught up.

DG: So elsewhere in the country, even in Seattle, it was more difficult, it seems. Can you explain maybe why it was, you had such good relations with people on Bainbridge before and after the war?

KN: I don't know. I really don't know why, but we just, we just got along. And of course, Walt Woodward was just so wonderful. He, in his Review every week he had something in there about the people, the evacuees, if they went out to work, or went to school back East, or got married or whatever, to kind of keep the Bainbridge Island community informed. So I don't think they were totally disconnected, they were in a way connected through the Review.

DG: And how about you? While you were in camps, were you able to keep connected the same way, to what was going on here on Bainbridge?

KN: Yeah, finally when we started to get the Review, it was okay. Until then we couldn't get any newspaper, letters were blacked-out in the beginning. So everything went okay, though.

DG: So what was that like for you to receive the Review?

KN: It was always, you just looked forward to it, just looked forward to it to see what was going on. Because after all, Bainbridge was our home, and we didn't know anything else.

DG: So there was no question... or how -- not everybody returned to Bainbridge after the war.

KN: That's right, that's right. Many people, they went back East or Midwest and they stayed. But what kept me going on the farm, on the ranch was I knew one day I was gonna come back, and that kept me going. So in this cottage that we were in, the farm cottage, we didn't have curtains, we had a table and couple of chairs, we sat on apple boxes or orange crates, in those days they were wooden, not paper, cardboard, like now. So that's what we used, because we didn't want to buy any furniture or anything or dress up the windows with curtains and everything else, because we knew we were gonna come back eventually. So we just did with whatever we had, and it worked out okay, you know, like you're roughing it. [Laughs]

<End Segment 24> - Copyright © 2006 Densho. All Rights Reserved.