Densho Digital Archive
Whitworth College - North by Northwest Collection
Title: Ed Tsutakawa - Heidi Tsutakawa Interview
Narrators: Ed and Heidi Tsutakawa
Interviewer: Andrea Dilley
Location:
Date: 2003-2004
Densho ID: denshovh-ted_g-01-0006

<Begin Segment 6>

AD: Tell us about Minidoka and you both arrived there and what that was like?

ET: Well, I got there in August.

AD: When you say "there," "I got to Minidoka..." so we know what you're talking about.

ET: Yeah, Minidoka, in August of 1942, okay. But I didn't stay there very long. Within about a month I went out to Twin Falls to work on farm, harvesting, then came back in November and stayed until April, 1943. I had a good job. Kept me real busy, and the people certainly got a lot out of some of our effort. Now, the job we're talking about, mine was a recreational area, but each one of us has to volunteer to do some manual labor. Like mine was, I was a coal truck driver, so we'd take the truck over to the spur and load it up with coal and bring that truck back. I made probably about six trips each time. My turn came maybe once every three weeks or so. It was very hard work, but it's kind of an enjoyable time in those days. I didn't have to load up, the people did. The rest of the time I was doing sketches, so I have plenty of that kind of thing.

[Interruption]

ET: That's one of the things that I think enjoyed the most, is we had great band and dance almost every night.

HT: Every weekend.

ET: [Laughs] Seems like every night. We had dance competitions and things like that.

AD: Wait, so say again how you guys met?

ET: That night that... gee, that year was 1943, '44 maybe.

HT: Your dad passed away in '44.

ET: Yeah, 1944. Around that time, I met.

HT: 'Cause it wasn't too long afterwards that your dad passed away, after we went in?

ET: Yeah. My sister already knew Hide. They're both named Hide, incidentally. [Laughs] Confusing.

HT: We would fight. For three days we wouldn't talk to each other.

ET: That's not me, she's talking about sister.

HT: Yeah, his sister and I. But we would go breakfast, lunch, dinner, and shower together, but we would just listen to hear somebody moving around, then we'd go out, walk out together, walk to eat, we don't say a word, come back, don't even say goodbye, goodnight or nothing. But it was like that for about three days, we wouldn't talk to each other. But we were the best of friends, I'm not kidding.

AD: So then how did... so Ed, your dad set you guys up, or tell us again what...

HT: No, no. He was out. It just so happened. He was my brother, my big brother.

ET: I came out to go out to -- well, first, my intention was to go to Gonzaga, but it didn't work out, so I went to Chicago. But I went back to camp to look and see my father. From 1943 to 1944, eleven times I went back. That's a lot, once a month. The reason was I also had a job buying used tires from Salt Lake and Denver. My job was to buy tires from Gates Rubber Company, it was a big tire company. And on the way back, I'd go through the camp, and used to bring back about two, three men who worked in the tire shop. So I made that trip fairly often, at least once a month.

AD: So then you guys saw each other then?

ET: Yeah, then --

HT: Oh, once in a while. Because he was out most of the time.

ET: Then when I was out, I rented a house. My mother came, my sister came, my brother came in 1945, then they came out. We all stayed in one house.

HT: In Spokane.

ET: In Spokane. Then she left, she's the first one to leave. My sister left...

HT: Oh, your sister was married by then.

ET: Oh, yeah, that's right.

HT: She was married.

ET: But anyway, my mother thought that she's going to start a little business in Seattle, so she went back.

<End Segment 6> - Copyright © 2004 Densho. All Rights Reserved.