<Begin Segment 18>

TI: So, so tell me some of the activities that you did in Topaz. How did you...

NH: Well, after we got there and everybody was assigned to their own buildings and so on... well, first of all, let me describe the, the block. The block had, what was it, five, six, six barracks on one side. Well, first of all, it was a, the whole place was just a square mile, and it was very, very, I don't know how they oriented it, but anyhow, they oriented it east, west, north and south, almost exactly. And each block was, there were seven blocks along the north border this way wide, and it was 7 x 7 blocks, okay. Now, so Block 1 began over here on the west north corner, and then it went one, two, three, four, five, to the east, seven, Block 7. And then Block 8 started all the way over on the west end and went eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen fourteen. We were in 14, so we were in the end. But right next to 14, outside of the fence was the water tower. Huge, huge water tower, and someone said it was the largest wooden manmade water tower in the continental United States. I don't know if that's true or not.

TI: And that water tower supplied the water for the whole camp?

NH: Uh-huh. Do you think so? I don't believe that. I think there must have been places that... well, I don't know, made out of wood. Maybe it was the biggest, yeah. And it was, it was built up on stilts, big stilts, and then there were four tanks up there on top of the platform. And it was there when we got there already, so they must have built it right away. And the water came -- I was told it was well water, so I guess they pumped it out of the ground. That was our water. But anyhow, getting back to each block, each block had six, twelve barracks, six on the west side, six on the east side of the block, and the blocks were oriented so that the buildings, each barrack was oriented so that the lengthwise was east and west, and then in the middle, between the two rows of barracks was a central area. The northern end was the dining room, and everybody had their, you know, Block 14 dining room, Block 8 dining room and so on. And then that was one, and then next to it was the laundry room and shower facilities and bathrooms, so that's where all the hot water was and everything else, yeah.

TI: And it was all, everything was, it sounds like, very uniform in terms of orientation.

NH: Oh, yeah.

TI: So if you got lost, how would you find, especially if you weren't on the end block, if you were in, like, one of the middle blocks...

NH: Yeah, if you were in the middle block, you got lost, you got lost. You'd have to go and ask, "What block am I in?" [Laughs]

TI: 'Cause they would kind of look the same.

NH: Yeah, they're all exactly the same. Exactly the same.

TI: So eventually, though, how did people differentiate their, their living quarters?

NH: Oh, I guess they just sort of looked around. 'Cause everyone tried to make some sort of a flower garden in front of their little area, and I guess the little flower gardens were all different.

TI: Yeah, but I'm thinking for maybe the kids or something, it must have been very confusing.

NH: Oh yeah. In the beginning, it was, every block looked exactly the same as every other block, 'cause they're all lined up. And even if you got to the block, all the barracks were all exactly alike. Unless you knew which one you lived in, you could walk into somebody else's.

TI: Which I'm curious, so were the rooms locked? Did people lock their rooms?

NH: No, we didn't lock our rooms.

TI: And so people might have just kind of barged in thinking it was their room. Was that, was that common for people to do?

NH: I don't think that happened very often.

TI: Okay, so people figured it out pretty quickly. [Laughs] I think I would get lost. I'd probably walk into the wrong one.

NH: Well, some of the kids would, probably, but I don't think it happened very often. Not that I know of. Like the dining room was one square building, so you knew that. The shower rooms and the laundry room, they were H, like an H-shaped building, and the crossbar of the H was where the boiler room was. And then they would dump the coal near there, and in the wintertime, that's where we would all wait with our buckets so that we could get some coal to put in our potbelly stove to keep warm.

<End Segment 18> - Copyright ©2008 Densho and the Topaz Museum. All Rights Reserved.