<Begin Segment 17>

TI: Okay, so describe what you saw when you got to Topaz.

NH: Oh, when we got to Topaz, actually, we went to... I guess, I guess we went to Salt Lake and then to Ogden, and then went south all the way to Fillmore -- not quite to Fillmore, they went to a little town called Delta. And at Delta we got off the train and got on buses. They were not Greyhound buses, either, they were something. I think they were rickety army buses or something. We got on the army buses, and then we drove all the way out to Topaz, which was out in the middle of nowhere.

TI: And, and what did it look like when you got your first look at the camp?

NH: Well, looked around, and it's just all flat. Where as far as you could see, there are mountains over there in the west, and the only way you knew it was west was because the sun would set that way. And then when we got to Topaz, we were ushered into an area and they started, again, some of the older Niseis who were saying, "Okay, now you go here and you go there," and so on, and they gave us quarters assignments, and we got, I remember that, 14-5E, that's where I lived. 14 is the Block 14, 5 was Building 5, and E was Apartment E in Building 5. And each building had up to F, six apartments. The two smaller ones are on the end, next were the two medium, the two big ones, and then in the middle were two medium-sized ones.

TI: And so with six, you got one of the larger?

NH: We got the larger one, yeah.

TI: And so describe that. How large was...

NH: Large, there were, the buildings were sixteen feet wide. And our, our big section, I think it was 20, 20 x 16, and then the one next door to us was the little building. Each entryway had, there was an entryway to the building, and it separated left and right, and one went to the small one and ours went to ours. The small one was 16 x 16? No, it was 16 by less than 16, maybe 12. And then ours, and then the two in the middle were the medium-sized ones.

TI: And then it repeated itself.

NH: And then it repeated itself, yes.

TI: So in your space, the 20 x 16, how was your, sort of, room?

NH: We were just one room, one big room.

TI: And so how did your family organize it? Where did you sleep?

NH: Oh, again, we made bunkbeds, so we had, we were sleeping in bunks. How was that? My mother and father didn't sleep in bunks, they slept downstairs, and then my sisters were on the one side of the room, farthest away from the entry, and then, then there was sort of like, my mother made a curtain so that the bedroom was over here, and then this front part of the, front part of the room was, there was a big stove in one side, a big coal-burning stove with a potbellied stove, cast iron one. I don't know where they got them, I don't know who made them or why, but then I've seen them. Hundreds of them were all around, 'cause every apartment had one. And we had a little table, I think my father -- either my father built it or a friend of ours built it and gave it to us or something. I think, I think Mr. Hara built the table.

TI: Because when you first got there, it was just the, the bedding was all that you had there?

NH: That's all.

TI: Okay, so things like...

NH: Bedding.

TI: ...tables, curtains, things like that, all had to be...

NH: Yeah, you had to scrounge around and get it yourself. And most of it, tables and benches to sit on and stuff like that, that they would go to where they were building barracks, and we would all go out there in the middle of the night and steal the lumber. [Laughs] That was the only way you could get any lumber to build anything with. So I'm sure when the workmen came the following day to say, "Well, let's, if you continue building, there would be no more lumber to build with."

TI: Well, how about tools? What did people use for tools to build?

NH: Some people were smart enough to bring hammers and saws and stuff. I don't think my father brought any of those things. I think he brought clips, though, for gardening. I don't know why. I don't know if he did or not.

TI: Interesting.

<End Segment 17> - Copyright ©2008 Densho and the Topaz Museum. All Rights Reserved.