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DG: And so what do you remember of that period when you were preparing to leave and you realized you had to start getting ready?

MW: Well, I think preparing to leave was probably the hardest thing for, for my mother especially because she had to, she had to help with my brother, of course, and my sisters. She had to move things out. We had good friends by the name of Mr. and Mrs. Hyde who my dad leased land from, to plant his strawberries. And they had a big barn so they said that you can bring a lot of your goods over and put 'em in the barn, like, you know, my mother's sewing machine, which was one of the mainstays in the house 'cause she always sewed our clothes. And, and I suppose, I don't know whether they took the refrigerator and things like that which were awful large items to take. But they took things that, that she felt were very important to have back. And I'm sure they were very busy doing that while we were gone to school. 'Cause I didn't see all of it going at all. And, I guess that's, that's just one of those things that we were lucky to have a friend like that that would take everything that you wanted to, to leave behind.

DG: And what do, what was it like for you to be going to school knowing you were leaving soon?

MW: I felt, I felt a little strange thinking, wondering what our friends in the class were thinking about it. And, because we felt quite humiliated that we would have to leave when we didn't do anything. And, but it was... and of course, Bainbridge being the first groups to go, it was a very new experience for everyone. And, so leaving school was very difficult because you were worried about what the other students thought about you. And I guess that's the main thing that was foremost in my mind, that we hope that they didn't think we were bad people. Whereas we were placed to look like bad people.

DG: And do you remember how you were treated by your classmates?

MW: We were treated the same. They never said anything derogatory to me or anything like that, because I think we had good friends. We were all... we all got along very well. So, I would say there was, I don't remember anybody really saying anything to me that was, that was very bad.

<End Segment 5> - Copyright © 2006 Densho. All Rights Reserved.