<Begin Segment 2>

DG: And did you go to elementary school in Clarksburg?

HS: Just one year. Just one, and then the family moved to West Sacramento, so I went to the West Sacramento grammar school. Then back to Clarksburg High School, one year, then we went to camp.

DG: So you were a little child in Clarksburg, and then your family moved to West Sacramento?

HS: Uh-huh.

DG: Did they move their farm, or just the house?

HS: When they moved to, they never did own the house, so they moved to another house that, if they farmed the land, the house comes with it. It was a, more like a shack. [Laughs]

DG: What was it like?

HS: The house in West Sacramento? Just like a rundown shack. So my mother papered the walls with newspaper.

DG: Did, did you share a bedroom with your siblings?

HS: We all lived in the same room.

DG: It was just one big room.

HS: One big room, my mother and father, my brother and sister and I.

DG: And so there was a stove?

HS: Probably was a wood stove.

DG: An outhouse?

HS: Outhouse.

DG: An ofuro?

HS: Yes, outside.

DG: Did the kids keep the furo, did you have to do the fire for the furo?

HS: Yeah, underneath.

DG: Was that a job for children?

HS: That was one of our chores.

DG: What were the other chores?

HS: Well, we had to keep the yard clean, pulling the weeds, that sort of thing.

[Interruption]

Off camera: You were saying one of the things about...

HS: About the furo is, there was a girl named Christine Ogata, and to start the fire, she threw gas in it, and so that really burned her. And what, she had the presence of mind to roll on the ground, get in the car, and drive to where her parents were so that they could take her to the hospital. 'Course, she died. That's one of the hazards of the furo.

DG: Was this when you were a child? Do you remember that?

HS: I remember that. Went to the funeral.

DG: How old were you?

HS: Christine?

DG: No -- well, how old was she?

HS: How old was I? Well, I was in the younger grade school.

DG: How terrifying.

HS: Probably was in the second or third grade.

DG: So you lived in Clarksburg, and then you moved to West Sacramento. How did they differ? Was West Sacramento more, were there more people there? Was it more built up?

HS: Well, when I was in Clarksburg, being little, we didn't go out, if at all. And then in West Sacramento, we had to walk about three miles to school, 'cause buses didn't go on the dirt road.

DG: What was the name --

HS: Even if it rained. [Laughs]

DG: What was the name of your grade school?

HS: West Sacramento Grade School. West Sacramento Grade School, I think.

DG: And it was an integrated school? It wasn't --

HS: Oh yes. In fact, the school is still standing in West Sacramento. But it's not a school anymore; it's a, they made it into apartments.

DG: Really? What street is it on?

HS: It's the main road when you go to West, from West Sacramento to Sacramento. I'm not, I'm not familiar. It's not Jefferson. It's the one on the east side of Jefferson.

<End Segment 2> - Copyright © 2012 Densho and Preserving California's Japantowns. All Rights Reserved.