<Begin Segment 15>

[This transcript has been extensively edited by the narrator.]

SY: So you didn't finish the story about your brother making --

GN: So we got the two (toilet boxes) -- and I have some diagrams, I made quick little sketches (for Manzanar). Because Manzanar really had intended to make (replicas of) these chairs. They could no longer find toilet crates because they pack them in Styrofoam now. But I said similar (boxes) come from China and Japan and we could get that kind of white pine wood and we could make them. Well, the man that was going to do it retired, and then they got involved with building this barrack (replica) which they should never have done because like I say, it's like the Ritz Carlton. I was so disappointed when I saw it. (Narr. note: It has no resemblance to the actual barracks that housed us.)

SY: This is at the Manzanar interpretive center?

GN: Yes, so they never did build it, (my brother's chair). But they have the plans and I just (made) these quick little sketches for them.

SY: And your brother --

GN: So anyway, we put the two boxes together, and I'll show you the diagram. One box was such that you could take the heavy pieces and you could make armrests. Then you could take another whole side of another box and you could lean it back at an angle. So here you had a chair, armrest and a reclining back, perfect for a short person, absolutely perfect. My grandmother and my mother were in seventh heaven. Well, the word spread like wildfire, and I swear, ten thousand people in the camp came to sit on those chairs. (I can still hear) their comments. "Gee, how lucky you are, such a talented grandson." And my grandma said, "Yes, I can sit here and I can enjoy this marvelous view." And she did. She made some zabuton (cushions). We got donations, people gave upholstery fabrics and drapery fabrics and all kinds of stuff they didn't want. And Reverend Nicholson trucked that up, and my mother found some drapery fabrics and she made some cushions. And so many times we said we wish we had brought those chairs out of Manzanar. They said, "There never has been a chair that good," Grandmother , (mother and aunts) said that. Everybody in the family said, "The Manzanar chairs were the best."

SY: So was he making other things in camp while you were there?

GN: Okay, yes. Sakiko Ogi, who was only five years old, tells this story. Many years later, our son, Joel Nakamura, is an artist, and he was having a one-person show in Pasadena at a gallery. And my girlfriend who lived in Gardena heard about it. I wrote to her and said he was showing there, and she said she'd like to come and see his show. So Sakiko Ogi was visiting at (her) house one day and Toshiko said, "Would you like to go see (Joe Nakamura's art) show?" (He's talented like his uncle Lawrence). "Yes," she said, "(Lawrence) was my favorite person in camp." So Toshiko was kind of taken aback because he was a lot older than she was, actually the same age as her brother, Mamoru. So Sakiko came to the show, and afterwards we were having lunch. And so I said, "I'm curious, Sakiko, why Lawrence was your favorite person." She said, "You know, we had no toys or anything. Then Lawrence told all the kids, "Save your milk cartons from lunch and go wash them out in the latrine and then come and sit on the steps of the mess hall, and we're going to do something fun." So they all did that, all the kids in our block. And there were a lot of kids from San Pedro in our block, because Terminal Island came to Manzanar. All these little kids came, sitting on the steps, and then I said, "What did you make?" I said, "I never knew about that." "Of course," she said, "You weren't a little kid." Then she said, "We made cars, and one boy," Shigetomi was his name, he made a fire truck. And they still have that fire truck at Manzanar, right in front of the museum, that's a showpiece. She said, "He made that fire truck with the ladder and everything on it, and he's become a world-famous artist." I said, "Is that right?" "Yeah, he works for one of the studios, Disney or one of those studios, Warner Brothers." And she said, "I saved my car for years." Then she said she had to go take care of in-laws, and she doesn't have her car anymore. But she said that, "He still has his fire truck, and I can get a hold of him if you want me to get a hold of him sometime." So I gave that information to Manzanar and they'll probably get a hold of him.

SY: So were you...

GN: So anyway, he helped them. But the light dawned on me, "Why the mess hall?" Well, (in) the mess hall, they have scissors, they have knives. And my aunt, who is a CPA, said, "When I go to camp, I'm just going to become a bonkoro." That's what she said. "I'm not going to do anything that involves the brain. If they offer any classes, I'm going to take all the classes and do things that I like to do." So she took up embroidery. She said it was kind of a no-good piece. She could really draw, too. She drew her own birds on the cherry blossom tree. I have it in the studio bathroom, I could bring that down and show you. Then I have some things right here. They're just little things right there.

SY: Your mike's on, so you can't get up.

GN: Okay. Well, anyway, we didn't have school. There was no school for a long time, so I went down to this rec. hall that was in the next block below us in amongst the apple trees. There was a lot of scrap lumber around, and I thought, well, I didn't want to make anything from a pattern. And our teacher, I think his name was... I was trying to think of his name the other day when I came across this thing. I'll think of it in a minute. But I decided, well, since we're having our classes in this little apple grove, I'll make an apple, because "Manzanar" is Spanish for manzana, which is "apple." So I drew this little apple. And the teacher said, "Oh, that would be a good, simple project." So I made an apple pin. Then Mother's Day was coming up and so I thought, "Oh, I think I'll make my mother a rose." We're San Lorenzo Salon brand roses (family). I found a piece of (scrap) redwood, and my mother has a knit outfit, but I gave that to the museum. She made a skirt, very beautiful skirt that has a checkered pattern all knitted. She has this coat that has a checkered pattern in the knitting down the front.

SY: So she made this... did she manage to get a sewing machine when she was in camp?

GN: No, she knitted it. She knitted it. But she had that before the war, but it's warm, so she brought it to camp to wear because it was cold in Manzanar. We didn't know what kind of weather it was going to be.

SY: So you all (were) really involved in making things in camp.

GN: My mother had that made before.

SY: But you made a little pin?

GN: It was really too big, actually, for my mother. It was too big, but it was easier to carve, so I made it big.

SY: So you carved it with...

GN: Yes, with carving tools. I don't know how he got those in the camp, but he brought some in his (suitcase) because he was a woodcarver, and he brought (some small) carving (tools). We had a woodcarving set, too, at home, but of course we didn't bring that. We had to leave it at our home. So I was familiar with using those kind of tools.

SY: (So your family, you brother and you in camp, were you as close as you were before camp or did you grow apart?)

GN: (We continued to be close and did things together like growing a vegetable garden next to our barrack in Block 29.)

[Interruption]

<End Segment 15> - Copyright © 2012 Densho. All Rights Reserved.