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FK: Who were the neighbors who take care of your farm when you were gone?

SK: What day...?

FK: Who were the neighbors that took care of your farm?

SK: Oh, the Frank Hydes, Frank Hydes over on Port Blakely, and the Vandolas who were next door to them, they took care of our property. The Hydes took care of our things. And then during the war, the Hydes sent many of our goods to us, and, and I think Mr. Grow took care of the family farm. So at least we got all our property back. And my dad started all over and we were very, very fortunate, 'cause we had such wonderful friends and neighbors. Of course, Bainbridge was known for, for the friendliness of all the people with the Japanese community because they were all next-door neighbors.

And so when the war ended and we came back, I was, I was very, very concerned about coming home because I said, "I wonder if I'll be accepted in high school." I was about thirteen when I came back and I was really frightened. But I went up to school and I signed in as Sally because I had to be very American and I didn't want to be known as Shimako anymore. Well, then along comes... and so the first day of school, Shannon Stafford and Ray Lowry, who were my classmates from kindergarten, they came up and they said, "Welcome back." And that just floored me, because I thought they weren't gonna, nobody was gonna accept me. But they did and they were very pleased that I was back. And the girls were very nice -- they, they helped me through, get me started through high school here. And the teachers were very, very nice. In fact, some of 'em, one of 'em tried very hard to see if she could help us. Well, we had, we had friends and neighbors who took care of us anyway, so we didn't have to have any of that. But I grant you, it wasn't easy for my dad to get started again. But one of the first, soon after we got back, then the Suyematsus came over to visit and to greet us and welcome us back. And they said, "We need some help on our farm picking strawberries and hoeing and doing whatever." And so my, so we were able to get a little bit of income from that. And so then of course every summer, I went to, I went to the Suyematsus and I picked all their berries for them. And that was, that was nice. I was able to earn a small income.

<End Segment 4> - Copyright © 2006 Densho. All Rights Reserved.