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TI: Well let's, let's shift a little bit and talk about some of the jobs you had. Like when you were attending high school and going to school, what did you do in terms of work?

LH: Well, I worked for the mayor of Garland, which was right near the school. I don't remember how I got the job, but I did and I remember my room was downstairs and his, he was in the service and I'm trying to think, you know those were days, they had no mayor, 'cause there was the mayor's wife and her sister had a little baby, too, so there're two little babies, and her husband was in the service, too. That's why she came to live with her sister during the war. And so it just boggles my mind. There was a time when the city had no mayor, but they treated me well and I got to go home on the weekends. That's why I worked at the potato thing and then I did domestic work for those that, I think they came to the house to ask if I would work for them. Once I worked for our landlord then other people knew that I did domestic work. So I did that for, I told you, a dollar a day and it was, well that, cleaning the walls with that pink, looked like play-doh and wiping the, the wallpaper down, that was an experience, because it's pink when it's new and when you wipe the walls down you're taking all the coal dust off, so it turns black. And that was, where it's reachable it's not bad, but when you have to climb the ladder and get the ceiling and... [laughs] My girlfriend worked, the Kanemotos, my best friend, she worked, but she's younger than I am and she's shorter, she got to do the bottom part, so I got to work on the ladder and do... but it was an experience and I only did it that one year. But I never knew you could clean wallpaper with a doughy thing. I think they still have 'em. I'm not sure, but anyway, it was convenient. And I worked for a big sheep ranch, owner of a big sheep ranch. He had a great big huge barn and they had a beautiful big house. They were very nice to me, so I did housework for them. They, I think they had children, too. But that's about the extent of my domestic work up north. And most of it was at Rowland Hall in Salt Lake City, 'cause otherwise I was working on the farm.

SF: When you were in Salt Lake City, did you go to Japantown in Salt Lake City?

LH: Yes. That's where we went on our days off with, there was two or three -- well, more than that, I think -- there was Ted Sato, George Sato, the two and then there was the Moritsunes, Mike Moritsune from San Jose and George Tomisaka from San Jose. They lived in Southern Utah, but they came to Salt Lake to work in the summer, too, so we met them there and they, for some reason they all worked in the garage and we, we did domestic work. And George and the Moritsunes we didn't see that much, but the other two from up north, we kinda stuck together and we went to eat at, I wish I knew the name of the restaurant, but there was a lady that worked in the counter, Doris, and she was Japanese, made the best banana cream pie. Everybody used to rave about her banana cream pie. I often wondered what happened to her, but anyway, we used to go eat there on our days off. And that's the extent of Japantown that I remember, and when I went back I tried to figure out where it was, but I couldn't. Salt Lake has changed a lot, too, because of the, the Olympics, around the train station. And I think I mentioned I used, I remember maybe twice I went home on the Bamberger train, Bamberger line it was called, and it ran along the Wasatch. It was a small train and I'd get off at Deweyville and a friend would pick me up and bring me home, and this friend that I knew, last week I asked her about the Bamberger line. She says, "No, it went out of existence a long time ago," but there is kind of a museum like where they have some remnants of the train or whatever in Salt Lake.

SF: Did you ever meet folks from the camps when you went out to, like to Salt Lake or these small towns?

LH: The only time we saw camp people in Salt Lake -- not in Salt Lake, I didn't see anybody from camp in Salt Lake. It was mostly just the three girls, the two Kakus and myself, and then, oh right, there was, at Rowland Hall there was the two Watamura sisters from, they were from Southern California near the border, Brawley, somewhere near there. And there was one more, Agnes, but I don't know where, she was from Southern California. They worked at Rowland Hall, too, and during the day I think they went to school with the Kakus, to domestic school, you know? Not domestic, commercial, they called it commercial. They taught to be a secretary or whatever. Anyway, they went to school during the day and I was the only one working full time at the, at Rowland Hall.

TI: And Rowland Hall was the, it was the...

LH: It was the Episcopalian school for girls. It was a private school and it, they had Emerald High School children, mostly high school. I don't remember little, little children at all. They were all older, and a lot of 'em were from divorced families, but from rich families. And there was one girl that I knew in California and she ended up there because of her parents, so that was, it was a surprise to see her there. And the, the leader, she was a gray haired woman, Mrs. Smith, and she was probably from England, but she ran the place and, and the teachers, I know they had a music class 'cause there was a Mr. Henrietta, he taught music, plus all the other things. But the part that stuck out for me is when we had to serve food and we had to wear those black uniforms, cotton uniforms with the white organdy collar and the white organdy wrist things and then the, the white organdy headband. I mean, it was formal. It was very formal, and so we had to serve them properly, from the right, we moved... but it was an experience. And so there were one, two, three, five of us, I guess, were in, six of us were in uniforms at night, so that was different. And I've never seen other people wearing outfits like that except in the movies. [Laughs]

SF: Were there other servers, like other ethnic groups?

LH: No, I don't remember. You know, I often wondered who took over after we left. I'm sure the Watamura twins and then Agnes stayed there, but then the three of us had to go back to the farm, but we, we did get back the next, next year they hired us and I remembered they gave me a dollar raise, 'cause I got, I was getting fifty dollars for the time a month, and then they hired me back at sixty dollars a month. So that was, that was good news, but it was a job. And then we went, from there we went to thinning, so looking back, the three of us worked all year round, whereas the parents kind of got off in the winter, after the, at least the men had more time off than the women 'cause we had to work in turkey farm, too.

<End Segment 16> - Copyright © 2010 Densho. All Rights Reserved.