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DG: Can you take me through the process, that week you had, that short week, of what, what things did you do during that week?

KN: Oh, it was kind of a chaos. 'Cause in just one week, you had to get somebody to run your farm, store some of your things for you, and sell something if you wanted to, and destroy everything that, you know, Japanese. And so it was chaotic, but with six children helping, doing everything, it, it got done.

DG: And how did you feel about the security of the things you did leave behind?

KN: Oh, we had a number of bedrooms in this new house, and so one bedroom was used as a storage, whatever we couldn't bring, you know, like trunk-full of things, and all your beddings for the eight of us. And on the farm, usually, Mom and Dad always -- well, not usually, most always -- bought things in big bulks 'cause there were eight of us. And so in a year's time they would buy thirteen sacks of rice, hundred pounds each, and a big sack of sugar, flour, and cases of milk, cases of salmon, case of abalone and all that kind of a thing. And of course we hadn't used all those things, so... and coffee. And so we stored some of those things up there. And in those days, you know, you didn't have very strong locks or anything, you trusted everybody and anything, so we weren't worried about anything getting lost. But we did have a renter that decided she's gonna peek in there, I guess, and kind of helped herself to some of the cotton things, you know, like sheets and towels and things like that, because you couldn't get those kinds of things during the war. Because the, all the cotton things were used for army, cleaning their machinery and whatever else they had to do, that's what we were told. So anyway, and then all that extra food that was stored, lots of it was gone, yeah. But that's how it goes.

DG: And is that where your kimono and doll were stored?

KN: In the trunk, and everything else was piled high on top of that, so that room was just piled high with stuff. And like the carpeting and some of tables we had, you know, nice tables and stuff, our Caucasian friends stored it for us, which was very nice, and couches and chairs and stuff.

DG: And now you've stored your things away, and how did you decide what things to take with you?

KN: We had no choice -- one suitcase apiece. Dad went to town and bought eight suitcases, we all had one suitcase apiece. And so we put in whatever we felt like we needed, and we really didn't know what we needed. We needed a change of clothes, of course, and some few important things we felt, each one felt that was important to him or her, we put in our suitcase. And we wore a lot of clothes. [Laughs] It was a beautiful day in March, and my goodness, I had my wool suit on, and wool coat on, and my hat on and good shoes. [Laughs] And where were we going? We didn't know. And we had probably, I don't know how much underneath we had on.

DG: So you wore extra clothes to help carry?

KN: Yeah, uh-huh, because you couldn't put in the, great big overcoat in the suitcase, because they'll take up all the room, and our suitcases weren't that big. They were medium, probably.

DG: One other thing that happened during that period was, actually, even before that period, were the FBI round-ups. Do you remember much from that?

KN: Yes. The FBI round-up -- well, of course, Dad was clearing land, so we had dynamite. And when they saw my mother's Buddhist shrine, a great big one, they thought Dad had a shortwave set in there. So anyway, Dad was taken just overnight at Fort Ward, and he was released. But some of the other folks were not released for some reason, I don't know.

DG: And at that time, what was your relationship with Sam?

KN: Oh, if you're familiar with the island, we lived on the east side of high school and Sam and his family had a farm on the west side of high school, which is now Commodore West and Commodore Lane. He had 60 acres there. But we sold it before we came home. We didn't feel like we wanted to farm, and it was hard to get the farm back again comfortably, so we sold out.

<End Segment 3> - Copyright © 2006 Densho. All Rights Reserved.