<Begin Segment 33>

TI: So we just, we just finished up Santa Fe, and so now I'm curious, so one day they came to you and said, "So Norm, we're gonna let you go."

NH: "Time for you to leave."

TI: "Time for you to leave, where do you want to go?" And so you told them you wanted to go back to Berkeley because your family was back there now. So talk about going back to Berkeley. What was that like?

NH: Okay, well, let's see. I guess first of all, have to say, my, when I got back to Berkeley, by that time, my dad had bought a house. How he did that, I don't know, but he was able to buy a house. And before he bought that house, when they went back to Berkeley from Topaz, they were living in the basement of neighbors of where we used to live, okay? And my sisters and my mother lived in a next-door neighbor's basement, and my, my father and my brother lived in the basement across the street. And then it was my turn to come home, but before I came home, somehow my father was able to buy a house a little further, three or four blocks away, down the road up on Grant Street. So that's where I went.

TI: And so at this time, was your father able to work?

NH: Well, he worked anyhow. I don't think, I think he just decided he was gonna go to work.

TI: So he was well enough after his heart attack to be able to work, as a gardener again?

NH: Yeah, as a gardener. He wasn't really well enough, but he did anyhow.

TI: And so about what time, what year...

NH: All right, so we're talking about '47, '46. I graduated in '44, '45, '46, 1946. I left --

TI: Okay, so the war had ended.

NH: The war had ended, yes.

TI: And this was, you were then released, and so '46, and what time of the year of '46?

NH: It was in the summertime.

TI: Okay, summer of '46.

NH: It was in the summertime, or early summertime of (1946), and Reverend Tana and I, I don't know why, but Reverend Tana was allowed to go home, too, and I guess he said Berkeley, 'cause we both got on the train and came to Berkeley. Did we come by train? Yeah, I think we came by train. Did we transfer? No, we got off the train, yeah. I remember we got off on, we went by train.

TI: And when you...

NH: From Santa Fe to Berkeley.

TI: And was anyone there to welcome the two of you when you got to, to Berkeley?

NH: Well, no, no. My father and mother were there, I guess, I don't know. Maybe, I don't remember. But they must have been.

<End Segment 33> - Copyright ©2008 Densho and the Topaz Museum. All Rights Reserved.