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DG: And now you, the train arrives and you get on a bus, and can you tell me... at this point you must, oh, again, at this point on the journey, what are you thinking and feeling?

MW: Yeah, so then, well, we're just on a bus, so we just know it's, it's another portion of the travel. And then we come into this barren, oh, all you see is desert down there, because we were in the Mojave Desert. And then when we arrived in camp, the workers that were there -- we were the first family groups to arrive -- so the workers that were there were there standing to gawk at us and we looked out at them and we went, "Oh my gosh." And some of 'em had, they were all, to me, we called them bachelors at the time because they didn't have their families there. They were people that they had recruited in California to help build the camps, and at the time we didn't know that. But we looked out and we'd see people that had Mohican haircuts and dressed, you know, because it's very hot weather and we weren't accustomed to that. So, here we're all wearing our suits and everything like that. And so, we just thought, "Oh, this is very strange." But, we, we just got off and went to... I suppose we just went to our barracks that they assigned us to.

And I can remember going, they told us to go for lunch. And so they, we had to go across a firebreak to lunch. And we went in for lunch, and the first thing I saw was these tin, tin pans and the tin great big cups, and all they smelled of was Clorox because they'd have to wash it in Clorox to get the bacteria out, I suppose, and so our first lunch was those little canned wieners. And I don't remember whether there was sauerkraut with it or not, but I remember I couldn't eat it. And all we did was... and it was because it was the smell from the pan. And, and actually it's, the pans were what you would use if you were camping at scout, nowadays. But that's, that's what we were using at that time, and I guess that was army, army gear, right?

DG: And can you describe more of your first impressions of camp, of where you lived, and again more of the men you saw there?

MW: Okay, we lived... they were black, black tar-papered barracks, and they had 'em divided into -- it was about fifteen by a hundred, and they had 'em divided into four quarters. And so each family would have one of those quarters, which would be only be about fifteen by twenty at that time, right? And, and they had a little, a little oil stove in there for our heat. There's no sink or running water. And we had to go and put ticking in, in a bag for our mattresses and bring it back to put on the cots. And so we would line, we lined up our cots, because there were seven us, that we had to line up four on one side and three on the other. And there were no closets or anything, so, eventually we put a bedspread up for closet space so that you could at least dress in privacy. And you had to, I remember, I remember outhouses. And they had two outhouses in between two barracks, so that's where you'd go for your bathroom. And actually, no running water. I don't know what we did, whether we, they had the laundry room running water or not. But, eventually they had the latrines and the, and the laundry rooms fixed up, and the shower. But the latrines, after they fixed them up, or course, we didn't have any dividers in them, so it was all open. And that was an experience. Because you didn't have any privacy at all. And neither did you have when you were taking a shower, because it was one room with, let me see, I think it had four showerheads coming out of there. So, if there were four people in there, well then you'd have to wait your turn and take your shower after that. And you would get quite dirty and dusty there because the desert is very sandy and the wind blows and your, your hair is always full of sand and so is your apartment. Because your apartments have, weren't sealed so that the dust would, would not come in. As a matter of fact, they used to come up through the floors.

DG: And I know I keep asking you about your feelings and emotions, but if you could describe to me what, what sort of emotions you were, were feeling when you first arrived and as you got used to living there.

MW: Well, like when I first arrived I, you know, you just, you're just in shock because you had never lived like that before. And, but when you're there... because you know that you have to get along and do the best you can, well, you just adapt yourself to the conditions that you're in. And they're not pleasant conditions, but there isn't anything else you can do except to do that. And I think it's because of the way we were raised, because we weren't, we weren't ever a rich family so you always were in a... able to adapt yourself to whatever conditions you had.

<End Segment 8> - Copyright © 2006 Densho. All Rights Reserved.