<Begin Segment 12>

NI: So your, your family then, where did they settle? After your father died and your family moved back to Japan or moved to Japan, they settled in Kobe or Osaka?

BH: Well, we moved from, first from Osaka to Kobe and then back to Osaka again. And that's where we stayed 'til the end of the war. During the height of the -- after I entered the navy, my mother moved to Shikoku where due to government orders to evacuate from large cities due to possible bombing and fire. And so my mother moved to Ehime-ken where she was born, and there she, you know, the war ended. She lived there when the war ended. So my sister, my younger sister was, the youngest sister was living with my mother, and my younger sister was living in Osaka as a technician for Asahi Shinbun. My eldest sister lived, went to, worked as a receptionist at a hotel catering to foreign dignitaries in Osaka. My elder sister was, my elder sister, she married her cousin, and she was living in Osaka. My brother Yuji, he was living in Tokyo. He was, after graduating, he worked for a company that was starting to develop Manchuria -- no, northern China, northern China.

[Interruption]

NI: We were talking about your family returning to Japan, and your eldest brother, who was taking care of the farm. With the evacuation, did your brother join you in Japan, or was he evacuated?

BH: My brother, the only person that was, stayed, who stayed back in Canada was my eldest brother. He took after the farm, and during, at the outbreak of the war in April or May of the following year, 1942, he was forced to move to Alberta.

NI: Oh, okay. So he went to Alberta with his family.

BH: Right, with his family, his wife and two daughters.

NI: Two daughters?

BH: Yeah.

NI: Whereabouts in Alberta?

BH: He went to Lethbridge. Lethbridge, I think he went to Picture Butte.

NI: Picture Butte?

BH: Picture Butte.

NI: Okay, so you're just looking it up now?

BH: Yeah, yeah, yeah. [Reading] "During the evacuation in 1942, Eiichi and family moved to a sugar beet farm in Raymond, Alberta." Raymond, Alberta.

NI: Did he, through the war, he stayed in Alberta?

BH: Yes. He didn't return to Japan during the... there was an exchange ship. None of the people that lived in Mission returned on the exchange ship back to Japan in '42 or '43.

NI: So none of the people from the ship returned?

BH: No, no.

NI: I see. So your brother was interned in Picture Butte?

BH: Well, he worked at, went to work at a sugar beet farm in Raymond.

NI: Oh, Raymond?

BH: Yeah.

<End Segment 12> - Copyright © 2005 Japanese Canadian Cultural Centre and Densho. All Rights Reserved.