Camp Harmony
Area C-2-40 Puyallup, Wn.

August 26, 1942
6:00 P.M.

Hi Clarice!

Was I tickled pink to hear from you! A week has passed since I received your letter and I'm so sorry I haven't done anything about it. I received your invitation to the commencement exercises, and also the postcard you sent me from Cincinnati, Ohio -- I might as well acknowledge my receipt of all your communications and although I didn't write back I had my good intentions. It seems that I'm always running about trying to do a lot of favors and filling in requests made to me by my campmates so that I never seem to get around to writing or answering letters from my very best friends. Ah me! I think that's awful -- and I do hope you will forgive my negligence. But don't think that I've forgotten you -- I'm always wondering what you are doing and how you are getting along down there so far away from the rest of us.

Really, Clarice, please tell me how you while away your time. Please tell me all about the good ole South -- I suppose your parents were so glad to see you in the flesh and I'm sure that it did them good to see you so well and developed. Everytime I hear the song "Carry Me Back to Old Virginny" I think of you way down there and get terribly lonesome for the gang so that I have to hurry up and get myself diverted to some other task. Once in a while I get the Blues so bad that all I do for a while is to reflect back upon the good ole times I had with the gang at the University. Next time I start to feel that way, I'm just going to sit down and write letters to you -- honest, I mean it -- it seems to do something for me, because during that time I forget a little of that inner pain and emptiness in me.

I think it was last Sunday -- I don't exactly remember -- a little boy came to the place where I work and told me that two American girls were here to see me and that they had brought a cake (this is what the boy thought). I had a hunch that perhaps it might be Frances and Shirley or Ernie and Frances -- anyway, I was giving a patient an alcohol rub and I was as messy as the dickens because I hadn't changed my clothes for a few days. I just left my patient flat and ran home and changed into some cleaner clothes, got out my Tyee, and a new book I bought (DeLee, Principles of Obstetrics -- I think that's the title) for $12.00 and ran to the visiting room. My, but I was glad to see Shirley and Ernie! I don't think that there's enough words in the English language to express exactly the feeling I bore down deep in my stomach when I set my eyes and it was a real treat for me because I don't see such things around here -- especially, since they stopped having foodstuffs passed through the gates.

I didn't care how they came -- although I thought that they looked very nice -- it was so good to see them right there -- I'm telling you it made me feel so good, just like the time when I saw you. I wished you were here, too. We had fun gabbing and talking about the things we were doing, but I couldn't get over the novelty of seeing them there! Then they gave me the pictures of you all in your caps and gowns -- something I'll cherish to my dying days. You all looked so nice and dignified in them. I do think that Shirley's picture didn't flatter her at all -- have you seen them as yet, Clarice? Well, I'm presuming that you have and so you will know how much I prize them. They (Shirley and Ernie) wanted to go and see George Sawada to give them the chocolate cake, so I went out of my area by my gate and they went theirs and then I called George Kawada and together we met in the visiting rooms in Area D again. By the way, George Sawada, Min Araki, Eichi Koiwai, Henry Itoi are just fine -- they are doing work around the central hospital as orderlies and doctor's assistants -- their job is called lab assistant -- and I don't have a place to do any research. But all of us pre-meds get skilled pay of $12 a month which I'm spending on a lot of books. Shoji Kaneko is fine, too. He was out there talking to another visitor and happened to see the three of us. When I go to Idaho -- our next home -- I'm hoping to join the hospital staff there because it's too much trouble to transfer at present.

By the way, this is the reason for my writing to you. We are moved to Idaho on the 29th of this month. Shoji Kaneko has already been moved I think. Because Area D and Area B and part of Area C (my area) has gone on ahead. The only reason why I'm here is that preparations are not yet completed to receive the rest of the evacuees. The hospital staff, however, in Area D are to remain at the last and they are to move in tact to the hospital situated in the camp at Idaho. Besides, they have to get ready and move the patients which is going to be one big job. So, George Sawada and those kids will be here until the first part of September. Perhaps our departure will be extended also, but I have my doubts. I do hope I can stay here a little longer, because I want to be in my home state near all of my pals. Although I hate to say this, Clarice, please don't write until you hear from me further, because I will not receive it here. Of course, you may write because I can have it forwarded, but I'd rather you wait. Your letters will be welcome anytime, because I want to hear everything. I heard from Shirley and Ernie and you also wrote in your letter that you will be back at the good ole U. to teach in the bact. Department. I'm certainly glad to hear that! All the more power to you -- I know that you will make a wonderful teacher and that students will enjoy you. Goodness, I wish I could go back too. It's going to be a shame having all of us separated, with Ernie at Ohio, Kazzy at Tule Lake, and me out in Idaho, while you and Shirley will be staying at Seattle. Keep the home fires burning and let's hope that this dreadful war will end soon. It seems to me that this dreadful war will end soon. It seems to me that the more educated we become the more squabbles we have, but I hope people will learn a lesson after this catastrophe is over.

I certainly hope that you will get this letter while you are in Virginia. Please extend my best regards to your parents and I hope that if we have peace I shall be able to study anatomy from your father. How is the rest of your family? How's Nina? I suppose she misses you very much, but it won't be long until she will be seeing you again.

I had wanted to get out and go to school very badly, but since I haven't heard much from my father and he's still not with us, I will have to stay and see the rest of the family settled in Idaho, before I can think of myself. I am going to apply to George Washington University in St. Louis, Mo. Because one of my friends told me that she was accepted there at the law school and wanted me to come along to keep her company -- besides, she said that the school was very kind in its answers and also, as you know, the school has one of the very best medical schools. I don't know how successful I am going to be but I think it's going to be worth the try because that girl got her acceptance one week after she applied. Of course, medical school is so much more difficult to get into. If I can't get in there, I'm going to try the other Catholic schools. I want to go to the U. of South Dakota where Shirley's sister is living, but until I find out whether they have changed their decision, I can't go there. Yankton College in S.D. has accepted me (that is, Mrs. Oakland, Shirley's sister is living, but until I find out whether they have changed their decision, I can't go there. Yankton College in S.D. has accepted me (that is, Mrs. Oakland, Shirley's sister obtained the acceptance for me), but since to go to an arts & science college, but perhaps I may change my mind. Mr. O'Brien's secretary here thinks that the best thing to do is to get out and I agree, but I can't do much until I hear further about my father. I also thought I'd try to write to Women's Med School in Pennsylvania, because I heard from Sam Adams -- he was here a few days ago -- told me that Olive Moe was accepted there and can go provided that she finished fifteen more hours so that she can receive her B.S. degree. I wish that all I could do is talk and don't do much about it, but I have such a hard time deciding and it's so hard to contact the right profs, right now. Lots of students are going to Boulder, Colorado, though.

About those exams I'm supposed to have taken and about which I feel so guilty. I asked Mr. O'Brien to please send me my exam papers, but I didn't hear a word from him since. I think that he's a very busy man and forgot. He was going to get me an exemption from P.E. 10, too, but I didn't get any word from him. I guess I'll wait and ask favors from you girls when you go back to school this fall -- if you don't mind. I still have your notebooks on H.E. 9 and Physiology 54 -- I hope you don't mind if I use them until I get my exam papers.

Thanks for the news about Kazuko and the others. I received a long detailed letter from her quite some time ago and I haven't written to her yet, but I'm going to tonight. It's just raining cats and dogs right now so I'm just going to stay and finish up all the correspondence which I owe to people.

I do hope you will get this letter before you leave so you can tell Sadako hello for me. Please tell her that I will be very glad to write to her, if she will give you her address which you can mail to me later when I inform you of mine. Is she going to school? Tell her that the best place to be right now is in school and that if I were her I'd stay as far away from the camps as possible. I certainly envy her and wish that I were in her place.

As I was saying, Sam Adams and his girl, Lorraine Boyd, were here to see Eichi Koiwai, Geo. Sawada, Min Araki, Henry Itoi, me, etc. We had one great time gabbing and talking of the good ole times at the University. Of course he had so much more information with the boys but it did me good to see him. I think he's planning to go to Northwestern next March where he is accepted. Remember Geo. Kumasaka? I received a letter from him not so long ago and he was telling me how much he had covered in anatomy at Northwestern Med School. I believe in two months' time he had covered the entire head and neck and was completing the thorax. I haven't got the letter with me right now because I am not at home, but it was an interesting letter. If you see Sadako at Chicago, she'll know whom I mean. Please tell her to give him my best regards, won't you?

I don't know whether I told you, but even if I do not work in the hospital, the nurse here is good enough to let me observe at some operations. I saw one appendectomy (from outside the operating room, so it wasn't such a good view), one OB case at a very close range, and some minor surgical cases such as the removal of naval polyps, all sorts of suturing, etc. I didn't realize until I saw these operations how little I knew so I bought that book on OB by DeLee. If you should happen to have any old books that you don't want and don't know what to do with them, will you please send them to me? If there's any good book that you want to sell, I'll be so glad to buy them from you. When you move back to the campus, I will send more letters and write frequently and may ask favors of you -- I hope you won't mind too much. I realize that you are going to be a very busy girl with classes to teach and studying to do, but if I ask too much just tell me so, won't you? All I'm interested in now is to get some good textbooks, because I left most of mine back at home in the basement.

I suppose you have heard about Shirley's moving again to a new location -- that is, they moved from Stoneway. I'm so glad to hear that they have their own place now -- I haven't written to Shirley or her mother who wrote me such long letters, but I am before I leave for Idaho, so if you see them before their letters reach them, please say hello to them for me. Also, to Frances and Ernie to whom I'm going to try and write tonight.

I'll write again, Clarice. Study hard and I hope to see you one day a Ph.D. I know you can make the grade. In the meantime, take good care of yourself and keep your spirits up. Until we meet again -- Auf Wiedersehen from

Margaret