<Begin Segment 15>

RP: Then you got this pass to go get married?

ES: Yes, yes. I left on a Thursday to meet him when he came from Camp Van Dorn to Los Angeles, so I met him with his parents at the train station. And from there we did everything we needed to to get married. So we had a big wedding and everything was done in ten days even to the printing of the invitations.

RP: And how long had it been since you'd seen your husband to be?

ES: It had been two years. He had been in Adak for two years. A good marriage, it lasted sixty years and seven children.

RP: And where did you settle after the war was over?

ES: Lynwood, yeah, we spent thirty-seven years in Lynwood and the children were all raised there. And then when we retired we retired to Big Bear so we could be in the mountains.

RP: Speaking of the mountains, how did your time at Manzanar with the backdrop of the mountains affect you personally, seeing that landscape out there?

ES: Oh, I loved the landscape. We have some beautiful pictures of Tuolumne, Lake Tania, and I have them to take home with me now.

RP: Did you ever teach again?

ES: No, I never taught again.

RP: That was your only teaching job?

ES: Well, I can't say that. They needed a basketball and a volleyball coach at St. Emydius where my children all went to school so I did that for ten years. But that was an after school, we'd practice about 3:30 'til around 4:30 and we played different schools. So sometime we would win and sometime we'd lose. Mary wasn't interesting basketball, I guess she'd been around it too much. I stopped coaching when she was no longer interested in it so I had taught for ten years. My other two daughters, I had taught them.

Off camera: I played softball, the sport she didn't like to play.

RP: She didn't make you twirl a baton?

Off camera: No but she showed me how to twirl.

RP: Did she?

Off camera: Yeah, I can remember her showing me, you know, some fundamentals.

ES: I learned to twirl a baton finally, yes. [Laughs]

RP: There was one other sport that was mentioned in the yearbook and that was a sport called speed ball.

ES: No, I didn't teach speed ball. Did the boys play it?

RP: I guess so. I thought the girls played it too but I guess it was some kind of soccer-like game where you kicked the ball.

ES: Yes, speed ball was similar I think you could touch a speed ball in soccer you can't touch it.

RP: They talked about how the girls kind of kicked themselves in the shins a lot.

ES: I don't know who taught them speed ball 'cause I never taught speed ball. I can remember playing speed ball when I was at UCLA because we had to learn how to teach all the sports.

RP: So what was the most significant change you saw in the girl's athletic program here in the time that you spent?

ES: Well, I thought they had a good athletic program, girls seemed to be happy with it.

<End Segment 15> - Copyright &copy; 2010 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.