<Begin Segment 7>

MW: What effect did it have on island life when all of these islanders were forced to leave?

EH: Well, we didn't have the meat market.

MW: And that was where everyone bought meat, right?

EH: Oh, you bet. My folks would buy meat through the Eagledale market, and Johnny and Mo cut all their meat. And they'd package it up, and that's how Mom got the meat. And then Port Blakely store, Dora Seaborn, she was the butcher and also cut meat.

MW: So she was able to do some of it, but did it mean that people were going without meat when they might have had it since the Nakatas were gone?

EH: Well, Charlie Hoodenpile was the butcher for Emmanuel Olson at Bainbridge Mercantile, and Dora was a butcher...

MW: What... I'm sure that everything on the island was changed because of the war. I mean everything was, rationing, for one thing, and the war jobs and those kinds of things. What was the tenor of Bainbridge Island during the first years of the war, or the first year that you were there before '43 when you left for the service. How did the island change? Or did it change because of the war?

EH: Well, I don't... you know, working six, seven days a week, we didn't have too much time off. And you look forward to the dance out at Foster's, and then it became Stanley Park, did it? Yes, I think it did become Stanley Park. That was on Saturday nights.

MW: Where was Foster's?

EH: Out in Fletcher Bay. And I got to tell you about Ma and Pa Foster. When I was at Ephrata, there was a guy that ran the boiler room which was right next to our hut. And he'd stand there like this here and mainly look out. And he'd look over at me every time I'd come back from the mess hall. And I thought, "Boy, he sure looks familiar." So one day I walked over there and he said, "Kid, you're from Bainbridge." And I said, "You got to be Pa Foster." And from then on, we always had talked about the island and talked forth. And Ma and Pa Foster lived out at the lake. It was an alkali lake just north of Ephrata. Actually, the first one in the Columbia Basin.

Off camera: Soap Lake.

EH: Soap Lake, thank you. And every Friday, Ma and Pa Foster would invite me out and she would bring in a different girl for me to meet every week. So I was riding high, you know.

MW: You didn't even have your Model A.

EH: [Laughs] Well, I had my car with me.

MW: Oh, you did?

EH: Yeah. I had a '40 Ford coupe. And every other week, I would get a pass and head for Bainbridge with a car full of servicemen. They'd be hitchhiking along the way, and it was a coupe, and I'd have to open up the turtleback and put that up and then put two sailors back there at once.

MW: And where did they stay on Bainbridge? Did they stay at your place?

EH: Well, two of 'em would stay at our home. They were from Ephrata.

MW: And were there dances?

EH: We always made the dance at Foster's, but it was Stanley Park then. We tried to get down to the whole place, but I don't know, I don't think it's still there. 'Cause there was a bridge, they had a little store. And the ferry Haiute used to run out of Fletcher Bay. So you can drive right on down, but you can't drive through now. You went over a bridge. And no more. So how they get down there, I don't know.

<End Segment 7> - Copyright © 2007 Densho. All Rights Reserved.