<Begin Segment 3>

EO: So describe Wyoming when you first arrived.

FE: Well, we, we were trucked from the train to the camp itself and at that time, the day we got there was one of those prairie dust storms and it was a very miserable sight there, just rows and rows of tarpaper shacks there and all this dust whirling and the weather was kind of, it was September so... no, it was May -- August so it was still pretty warm, but it was a very, gave you a very forlorn and desolate feeling, it was just out in the prairie there, desert-like prairie.

EO: What were some of these like? Can you describe the camp itself?

FE: Well, when we got there it was very, seemed like it was unfinished at first, but we found out that's the way it was going to be. The barrack that we were in was oh, maybe twenty feet by sixteen feet, twenty feet -- something like that. Anyway, my family and my parents' family, which included my father and mother, younger sister and older sister, myself, my wife and baby, were in one room, so like most other evacuees, we strung a blanket between our sections and made the best of it until another barrack opened up, and then we were able to move into a smaller barrack which was about twenty feet by about twelve feet, I think, the one we stayed in. But at least it was separate. And when we got in there, it was just an empty room, without any inner wall, just the outside wall, and one solitary light hanging from the top, and one big iron stove -- pot bellied stove there, in the center, and that was it. Until we got cots, and then they brought in some cots, and luckily we didn't have to sleep on straw mattresses, they had regular cotton mattresses for our beds, cot beds, yes.

EO: Well, actually, the Japanese American community before the war were pretty middle-class, wouldn't you say? I mean, their lifestyle was modest perhaps, but they had nice, decent living quarters and such.

FE: Yes, it was... I wouldn't exactly call it upper-middle class but it was livable, and I think it was comfortable, but nothing ornate or luxurious, so it was quite a letdown from what we were used to.

EO: How was the food in camp?

FE: Well, I can remember one thing, we had some funny-looking fish that people called "three-boned fish" that nobody could eat. It was terrible. And I didn't like fish anyway so I don't think I ate maybe one or two bites of that, and that was it. But we had a lot of pastry. We had spaghetti and macaroni, and they had rice, and I believe they made tsukemono, cabbage tsukemono, etcetera. And as far as the rest of it, I really can't remember too well, but I remember we were having some tofu cooked with vegetables and maybe little pieces of meat, but actually, I can't remember what we had for breakfast -- probably had some oatmeal or something.

EO: What was that weather like? You being from California, too. Compare it.

FE: Oh yeah, the first winter we were there, I think it snowed in the middle of September. And we didn't even have an overcoat. We were from Southern California, in hot, hot weather that we left there. So they did issue, later on they did issue navy peacoats and khaki-type of jackets, but that first winter was so cold, it was, I think it was the record coldest winter in Wyoming history -- it was like thirty below zero. And to give you an idea of what happens, the, we had to take showers in barracks on the outside, and walk home from that shower, shower and toilet barrack to our own barracks. So when you took a shower, and your hair was slightly wet, by the time you got to your barrack, it was like icicles. And if your hand happened to be wet yet, why, if you touched that metal door, it would stick to that metal door. So it was a pretty miserable winter, and I think a lot of people suffered, especially the very elderly and the young. But I guess it was around the middle of December that they finally got an inner, inner wall of Celotex, which helped a little.

<End Segment 3> - Copyright © 1994, 2003 Densho and Emiko Omori. All Rights Reserved.