<Begin Segment 20>

SY: So were there, do you remember people dying, very many people dying in the hospital?

YY: I'm pretty sure, at that time I knew when people were dying, but I don't know how many people died. 'Cause they would always tell you that somebody had died.

SY: Was it a lot of older...

YY: Older people.

SY: So it was natural causes.

YY: Right, mostly.

SY: And were there any that you remember that were kind of unusual?

YY: No.

SY: People who might have taken too many pills or something like that?

YY: No, I don't, can't remember anybody. It's been some time, so I keep forgetting things. But I remember, I remember people dying.

SY: So nothing stands out in your mind of when you were working there, something really unusual.

YY: No, I don't remember anything.

SY: Just a lot of mostly women getting treated. So there was, do you remember people having that, I guess it was a, what they call valley fever?

YY: No, I don't remember valley fever.

SY: I wonder if that was not at Manzanar, if that was a condition that people that had in Manzanar, it was mostly other camps.

YY: No, I don't remember any valley fever in Manzanar.

SY: But the, now, the dust was something that created a lot of problems, right?

YY: Yeah. But afterwards it wasn't getting too bad because they built basketball and baseball fields and things like that, and then they would water it and stuff like that, so it wouldn't... but when we first got there is when it was really bad.

SY: So it got better, then, as time went on.

YY: Yeah. Then they built that, the farmers had a farm out there and that killed a lot of dust. The food got better too, after the farm.

SY: They actually fed you food from the, that they grew. So more fresh vegetables and things like that. How, I mean, what was the worst part about the weather? Do you remember it being certain things? Was it the hot or was it the cold?

YY: I think it's the hot that bothered me more than anything. It got cold, but it wasn't really that cold. I don't remember it snowing. Somebody said it snowed in Manzanar, but I don't remember that. The mountains were real close too. They had snow on the mountains, but I don't remember it being real cold, not like Heart Mountain and all those places.

SY: So, and when it would get hot, the hospital would get real hot too? People were suffering from the heat inside?

YY: I can't remember.

SY: As far as you know, there wasn't that...

YY: I can't remember it being hot in the hospital.

SY: But the, I mean, it was fairly, fairly regular, the hospital.

YY: Yeah.

SY: Nothing unusual.

YY: No, not that I can remember, nothing happening.

SY: And the doctors stayed the same throughout the whole time you were there? Or was there turnover?

YY: I think one or two left, and I don't know if anybody took their places. But then the camp was getting smaller too 'cause people were leaving too.

<End Segment 20> - Copyright © 2012 Densho. All Rights Reserved.