FIND FRIENDS AT MINIDOKA
By PAUL OHTAKI
Review Staff Correspondent

HUNT, Ida., Wednesday, March 10--Greeted with "Welcome Bainbridge" posters and apartments which had been thoughtfully warmed for them, 187 members of the Island's issei and nisei Japanese colony arrived here from Manzanar, Calif., last Friday.

Since then it has been a matter of the Islanders saying over and over again: "It's just like coming back home." For they found hundreds of Seattle friends evacuated here. At Manzanar, the little group of 38 Bainbridge Island families had been "lost" amid the 10,000 California evacuees there.

Their new location is in Block 44, which is the last block in the three-mile long Minidoka Relocation Center at Hunt, Ida.

A front-page item in the Minidoka Herald, duplicator publication at the center, welcomed the arrivals by saying, "It is our hope that we can make your stay here as pleasant as possible."

Islanders found muddy underfooting and more unpleasant weather than at Manzanar but they also found countless friends who seemed anxious to welcome them.

The trip was made in a seven-car train chartered by the War Relocation Authority. The train included a pullman car for older people and young children. The move was made possible by a petition of the Island evacuees supported by The Review and other caucasian friends on the Island.

* * * * *

A sudden gathering was given in the S. Sakai home Sunday, prior to the move for Idaho. Miss Kazuko Sakai's, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. S. Sakai, Winslow, engagement to Mr. Sam Isamu Nakao, son of Mr. and Mrs. T. Nakao, also of Winslow, was revealed. Because of the move, their wedding date was not known. Miss Sakai is a 1938 Bainbridge High School graduate, while Mr. Nakao, also from the same school, was graduated in 1932.