Densho Digital Archive
Manzanar National Historic Site Collection
Title: Elaine Clary Stanley Interview
Narrators: Elaine Clary Stanley
Interviewer: Richard Potashin
Location: Independence, California
Date: August 21, 2010
Densho ID: denshovh-selaine-01

[Correct spelling of certain names, words and terms used in this interview have not been verified.]

<Begin Segment 1>

RP: This is an oral history for the Manzanar National Historic Site. This afternoon we're talking with Elaine Stanley. Our interview is taking place in the library of the Manzanar National Historic Site office. The date of the interview is August 21, 2010. Our videographer is Kirk Peterson, interviewer is Richard Postashin. And Elaine will be sharing some of her experiences as a physical education teacher here at Manzanar between 1943 and 1944. Our interview will be archived in the Park's library and, Elaine, do I have permission to go ahead and conduct our interview?

ES: Yes, you surely do.

RP: Thank you so much.

KP: Can you mention the other person in the room please?

RP: Oh yes, with us also today for the interview is Elaine's daughter Mary.

ES: My youngest daughter.

RP: Youngest daughter, okay. And thank you both for coming down today.

ES: We're happy to be here.

RP: We're going to talk a little bit about your family history, first of all yourself. When were you born and what year?

ES: I was born in April 5, 1920, in a little town called Union Town, Kansas.

RP: And how little was Union Town?

ES: I don't think there were more than two or three hundred people in the town. It must have been a farming town.

RP: And do you recall what your father did?

ES: My father was a barber who also liked to play baseball and he was a great pool shark.

RP: And what was his name?

ES: Earl Clary.

RP: And can you give us a little background on his ethnicity? Where did his family hail from?

ES: Well, I believe the Clarys came from Illinois, I don't know what year, and settled there in Kansas. I believe my grandfather was one of about eight children.

RP: And your mother, her name?

ES: My mother was Francis Clary, her maiden name was Blaha, Francis Blaha, and she was born in... at that time it would have been Moravia. After World War I it became Czechoslovakia and she came over here as a baby and she was born in 1891.

RP: What can you tell us about your mom?

ES: Well, my mother taught her family how to speak English and she was taught by a little playmate when she was about four years old. Went to school there in East Jordan, Michigan, and went onto normal school, and then taught in Michigan and spent her summers as a waitress at some of the hotels in Yellowstone National Park and Glacier National Park. And it was while she was there she met my dad who had homesteaded in Montana but lost his homestead because I don't think he could really hardly pound a nail. He was a barber not a carpenter. So after they were married after World War I he had been drafted and had spent his time as a litter bearer in France. He came back then to Montana and they were married in 1919 and moved to Union Town, Kansas.

RP: And you were the first child?

ES: I'm the only child.

<End Segment 1> - Copyright &copy; 2010 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 2>

RP: Shortly after you were born your dad decided to come west.

ES: He decided to come to California in 1922 and he had bought a Model T Ford. And we came with a group of friends and family. I think there was about seven cars that migrated to California on old 66.

RP: And were you too young to remember?

ES: I don't remember much of it. I remember the Indians in, I guess it must have been New Mexico.

RP: You do?

ES: And I think a bridge must have gone out and we had all gone down to see what was happening and when we came back, my little red rocking chair and red mittens were gone. So that's about my only remembrance of that trip. But it took us about a month to drive from Kansas to Whittier, California.

RP: And why Whittier?

ES: My father's sister lived in Whittier. His mother also had a rooming house in Los Angeles. But I guess they thought my dad could get a job as a barber in Whittier so we went to Whittier. But he wasn't happy with California and went back to Kansas in 1924, still wasn't happy, and went back again in 1925. When we came back he decided that there was no place like California.

RP: And did he just enter into a barber?

ES: He later worked at a barber shop in Huntington Park and then in 1926 we moved to Huntington Park.

RP: Where is Huntington Park in reference to Los Angeles?

ES: Well, it's probably about four miles from the city hall in Los Angeles.

RP: Can you describe to us what that community was like when you were growing up? Was it a urban community or a rural community?

ES It was more of an urban and considered one of the best business towns around. The street, the main street was about a mile long and everything was on that one street, all the businesses. But there was so much manufacturing around Huntington Park and in Huntington Park. A lot of oil tool business around in that area and the aluminum company was there too. So it was a good town for my dad to have a barber shop.

RP: Have lots of business. And your mom was busy raising you?

ES: Well, my mother had always worked and so she would have had to gone on to complete her credential in California which she didn't do and she worked at a school, Huntington Park High School cafeteria, as a salad maker.

RP: Did she rise up through the ranks from salad maker?

ES: Well, we had the big earthquake in 1932 or '33 I can't remember which of the big Long Beach, Inglewood earthquake and the high school burned down. So she was without a job then, so she went to Frank Wiggins trade school and learned other phases of cooking, baking, the cooking, of course she already knew the salad making part. So she became a manager of a junior high school in Hollywood and she did that until my dad decided to retire and leave Huntington Park.

<End Segment 2> - Copyright &copy; 2010 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 3>

RP: During the time that you lived there, your family began taking trips up to the Eastern Sierra area.

ES: Well, by the time I guess I was five years old I'd seen every state west of the Mississippi in the Model T Ford. So our first trip, big trip in California was to the Eastern Sierras and I can remember his forgetting the tent poles and we had to stop in Bishop and have tent poles made. And for that trip it was 1926, my uncle had a brother who lived in Colville so we stopped at June Lake and stayed there a few nights. And then stayed with the family in Colville and onto Lake Tahoe and then to Yosemite Valley.

RP: What were your early impressions of the country that you visited here?

ES: I just thought it was a long long trip for a six year old in the Model T Ford.

RP: What was it like riding in the Model T Ford?

ES: Well, I have so many memories of that car not making it up a steep grade and my mother getting out to help push. And I always had to get out and help push with her.

RP: And then later on you came up through the Owens Valley again in 1932, '33?

ES: I believe that was probably the first time. In 1927 we went to Sequoia, in 1929 we went back to Kansas to visit the relatives, and then the Depression. So I think San Gabriel in the Los Angeles National Forest area was our campground that year. We didn't go very far. And probably the next two or three years it was at Lake Arrowhead. So then I guess things were picking up in my dad's business and '33 and '34 we went to Glacier, Glacier Lodge out of Big Pine.

RP: What do you remember about that experience?

ES: That was a fun time we were there with relatives and remembered going horseback riding to I think it was Baker Lake up there and hiking up to the lakes one and two and three and so forth. But my dad had a customer who asked him why he didn't go to Tuolumne Meadows and my dad said he didn't know anything about it. But that same year after we got back from Glacier Lodge he went with my uncle to Tuolumne Meadows and there was no more beautiful place and that's where we went every year after. He never missed a year and he died in 1954 so from '34 to '54 he spent every summer at the Tuolumne.

RP: And where did you stay when you were there?

ES: In the campground.

RP: And did you hike?

ES: Oh yes.

RP: Where would you hike?

ES: I hiked a lot with Carl Sharsmith, the ranger naturalist, and then he had fallen off the mountain there and different rangers would come up to take his place for a number of years we had somebody else. So my first hiking was Mt. Dana and Mt. Canas and Cathedral Peak. And that was when I was fifteen and then after that over the years I climbed about every peak available around Tuolumne with a ranger. Those were the days when the rangers worked six days a week and hiked every day.

RP: Wow, we sure come down from that.

KP: We're embarrassed.

RP: Yeah, really I feel discounted.

ES: They weren't pansies then like they are today.

Off camera: Now it's name calling. [Laughs]

RP: Are you sure you want to get into this business? Pansies, they were real men.

ES: They were real men.

RP: So would you actually go out with a ranger in a group or would it just be your own personal ranger?

ES: With a group, no, no, with a group, always with a group.

RP: I want to talk a little bit about Carl because he was sort of a legend in, you know, in Yosemite and park ranger circles. What do you remember most about him? What about his personality or what made him such a great ranger?

ES: I think his personality and his really love of the mountains. Of course he was really a botanist. He knew every flower there was, not like the first ranger I hiked with up here everything was a senecio anything that was yellow was a senecio.

RP: Well, we've changed that now it's a damned yellow composite.

ES: [Laughs] Things change.

RP: So you got a great deal of knowledge from Carl about the plants.

ES: Yes, I also made a great friend of Tex Bryant who also, he was from Texas but he loved Tuolumne.

RP: There was another park ranger you mentioned, Burt Harwell.

ES: Oh, Burt Harwell he was the chief ranger naturalist for Yosemite, for Yosemite park. He also whistled and I climbed Cathedral Peak with him for the second time. I never saw a ranger or anybody could leap all those mountains like a mountain goat. All of us were clinging to those rocks climbing Cathedral Peak, he was just bouncing over them.

RP: You said you climbed Mt. Dana ten times?

ES: Ten times, yes, I climbed Mt. Dana.

RP: Is that your favorite peak?

ES: Well I don't know. It was just a peak the ranger went out every week. Not once in a coon's age but once a week there was always a trip to Mt. Dana. So if I wanted to hike that particular day I climbed Mt. Dana.

RP: So you spent most of your time in Tuolumne Meadows, did you ever go down into Yosemite Valley at all?

ES: Well, I hiked down to Yosemite. Once on the Snow Creek Zigzag Trail and another time over the Yosemite Falls Trail. And other time via Clouds Rest and Half Dome in the valley and then we'd stay all night.

RP: So you hiked down there how many days or was it a day trip?

ES: That was a day trip down.

RP: Did you ever stay at the High Sierra camps at all?

ES: Yes, I've stayed sometimes. I've never been able to make the loop. I've always wanted to make the loop but the only High Sierra camp I missed is Merced Lake. I've been to Glen Aulin and Sunset and Vogelsang, of course Yosemite. There must be another one that I've left out.

Off camera: May Lake.

ES: May Lake, yes. Well, May Lake was a favorite hike, favorite fishing place.

RP: I was going to ask you, did you fish at all?

ES: Well, when I was young, no I wanted to hike. I went out with my dad several times but I preferred hiking to fishing. Then when I got older I loved to fish with my husband.

RP: Did your parents hike at all too?

ES: My mother. My dad would hike any place if there was a lake at the end or a stream where he could fish. He was the fisherman of the family. And my mother loved to hike.

RP: You got a really good grounding in the outdoors as a teenager.

ES: Yes, you can see why maybe I wanted to be a physical education teacher.

RP: Yeah, that was exactly what I was heading for. Where did that inclination come from, your interest in sports or physical education?

ES: Well, I think my dad always wanted a boy, especially a boy who loved baseball. But instead he got a girl so I had to be good in sports to win his approval.

RP: Do you feel like you did?

ES: I feel like I did. I definitely had his approval.

RP: Now you said early on that your mother's background was teaching.

ES: Yes.

RP: Did she have any influence in your decision to be a teacher?

ES: Probably some. She was the one that really encouraged me to go to college.

<End Segment 3> - Copyright &copy; 2010 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 4>

RP: Let's talk a little bit about your education. Where did you go to grammar school?

ES: Well, I went to a Catholic grammar school in Huntington Park called Saint Matthias from the first to the ninth grade. And then my last three years was Saint Mary's Academy in Los Angeles where I finished high school. And then I went to Los Angeles City College for three years and then went to UCLA for two where I graduated in 1943.

RP: So tell us about, you know, about the sports and physical education programs that you got involved with you know as you went through school. What sports did you get interested in?

ES: Well, I was mostly interested in basketball, that was my first love. But I loved all sports, of course at that time we didn't have soccer. And we didn't really have at that time, girls weren't allowed to really have much more than play days. The Catholic schools had more of competition between schools than the public schools did at that time. And even UCLA we did play some teams but not like they do now. There wasn't that much money given to girls sports.

RP: Were you on teams in your high school years?

ES: Yes, I was on the basketball team and the volleyball team. I was never much of a baseball player. I don't think that made my dad too happy but as I said, my love was basketball and still is.

RP: And so at that time was basketball a sport that was new to girls' athletics?

ES: No, but things have certainly changed. When I first started basketball it was only, we had three courts, the forwards stayed in one court, the guards stayed in another court, and then the middle court were a centers, we had a running center and jump center. And then we progressed a little bit and we had two courts, but the guards still played in one court and the forwards in the other court. We eliminated the centers. And then of course after my day of teaching and playing they went to regular boys basketball with the one court.

RP: And what participation did you have at UCLA in terms of sports?

ES: I was on the basketball team at UCLA.

RP: You said that during the time you were at UCLA that you did compete with other teams from other schools?

ES: Yes, we competed against USC and I think one of the Pomona colleges, I can't remember the others.

RP: Where were games held? Were they indoors or outdoors?

ES: They were indoors in college.

RP: What position did you play?

ES: I played guard. I wasn't too good of a shot so in those days, you know, guards couldn't shoot, only the forwards could shoot. The running center and jump center they couldn't shoot, just only the forwards the two forwards.

RP: So your function was just to get the ball to the forwards.

ES: Yeah, my job mostly was to see that the other forwards on the other team didn't get a shot. That's what I was best at.

RP: Good defense.

ES: Good defense, yes, I was a defensive player.

RP: And was there enough money to afford uniforms for the girls basketball team?

ES: At UCLA there was and also City College we had uniforms.

RP: Did you live on campus or off campus?

ES: At UCLA I lived on campus in a dormitory. I think our tuition was fourteen dollars a month for my dormitory room.

RP: And how about for school?

ES: I can't remember what the tuition was but it was so very little that my family could afford it. And then I worked on Friday and Saturdays at Sears as a credit interviewer until I got my job at Manzanar.

RP: Now had you had any previous experience with Japanese Americans?

ES: No, not really. I only knew one Japanese girl when I was at the City College. She was a good friend we were on the basketball team together but that was it.

RP: How about other minorities?

ES: Well, there weren't many other minorities. Black Americans I had... there weren't very many at UCLA that were physical education majors that I can remember. I think there might have been one.

RP: How about women at UCLA at the time you were going to school there? Were there... early on there were quotas for certain minority groups attending universities.

ES: I don't think so, it was wartime, the enrollment had dropped considerably, especially with the men. There was a lot of ROTC.

RP: So did you have a social life while you were going to UCLA?

ES: No, my social life was mostly with my boyfriend whom I eventually married during the war.

RP: Where did you meet him?

ES: It was a blind date and my sister-in-law, a very good friend, introduced me. But UCLA it was mostly going out with girlfriends and going to movies or something like that. Any doings of course going to all the games, the football games, the basketball games. But I don't think there was too much of that at that time either.

<End Segment 4> - Copyright &copy; 2010 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 5>

RP: Let's backtrack to December 7, 1941, the day that Pearl Harbor was bombed. What do you remember about that day?

ES: Well, my boyfriend and I were hiking at Angeles Crest on a trail and we didn't know anything about it until we got in the car to come home. And heard about the bombing and we thought it was an Orson Welles program we were listening to, we couldn't believe it. So then we knew that he would be going, he would be drafted right away which he was. He left January 2nd of 1942 for the army. I was a junior at UCLA at the time.

RP: Where did he get sent?

ES: He did his basic training at Camp Roberts in California and then went to El Cajon, he was in the field artillery. They put him in the field artillery because he had had a year of trigonometry and he was a surveyor, was put in as a surveyor. So then he was sent to Adak in the Aleutians and they built up Adak as much as they could and when on the invasion of Kitska when they got there there were no Japanese, they had left the day before. So he missed that battle then he was sent after spending two years in Adak he was sent to Centerville, Mississippi, to Camp Van Dorn and had thirty day leave of absence and we were married. So I had a ten-day leave for vacation or whatever from Manzanar and we were married in Huntington Park, May 28th of 1944. And after our honeymoon at Laguna Beach he went to Camp Dorn, Mississippi, and I went back to Manzanar, kept writing him wanting to know why he hadn't found a place for me to live with him. So finally the day arrived in August, the middle of August and I left Manzanar and went to Camp Van Dorn, Mississippi.

RP: What was his name, your husband?

ES: Arthur Stanley.

RP: It sounds like he loved to hike just as much as you?

ES: Well, no, he didn't like to hike as much as me, he was more like my dad and if there was a lake at the end where he could fish.

<End Segment 5> - Copyright &copy; 2010 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 6>

RP: So during the time you were attending UCLA 'til the time you came to Manzanar were you aware of what was happening to Japanese Americans on the West Coast in terms of being removed and sent to camps like Manzanar?

ES: Well, everybody was afraid. They were all so afraid that we would be bombed you know like Pearl Harbor was so most of the people at that time were glad that they were interned. And I was busy in my senior year there and didn't pay too much attention what was happening with the Japanese. So when I was told when I applied for a job at the job placement center there in UCLA when they told me about Manzanar. I said, what is Manzanar? I knew so little. But when I heard it was in the Eastern Sierra I was all gung ho for going 'cause I had really wanted a job at Bishop High School or Lone Pine High School. And so Manzanar was the closest I could get to and be in the Eastern Sierra.

RP: Did you have any job offers from any other schools?

ES: From Huntington Beach High School. Their pay wasn't as good and I had to sign a contract whereas Manzanar the pay was better. Of course you worked twelve months a year at Manzanar where you only worked you know ten months actually it was only nine at one of the high schools in Los Angeles area.

RP: Were you given any other information about Manzanar when you took the job?

ES: They told me you know there was a Japanese relocation center and it would be all Japanese and that was fine with me. As long as I could teach physical education I was happy.

RP: How did you get up to Manzanar?

ES: My aunt was bringing my mother to join their husbands at Tuolumne and it was on the Fourth of July of '44, '43. Was it '43?

Off camera: '43

ES: '43. And nobody knew I was coming, they were all expecting me on the Greyhound bus. And they knew what time would be you know. So when I came about noon no one was there so I didn't know where I was, here I was and all I could see were Japanese men, it was the Japanese had their police station you know. Well, it was the kiosk up front with the soldiers I thought oh my gosh what am I getting into? Here are these guard towers, you know, and this group of soldiers at the kiosk in front and then the Japanese men at the police station behind that. Oh, my gosh, I'd better turn around and go home. But finally they found somebody that was expecting me that day but on the bus, so then they welcomed me and showed me to my barracks, my tarpaper barracks and where I would live and showed me the latrines and I think I must have gone to lunch. But anyway everybody was so friendly that pretty soon I felt at home.

RP: When you first got here, school was out.

ES: Yes.

RP: And what did you do as your first kind of position that summer?

ES: Well, I didn't know what I was going to do and then they assigned me to teach kind of a preschool kindergarten group of Caucasian children from the administration and the teachers and that was a lot of fun with the little children. So I taught them little dances and rhymes, nursery rhymes and songs and we had a good time doing that.

RP: Do you remember any of the kids that you taught?

ES: Well, there was Genevieve Carter's little girl and Sandy Sandstrom, I guess his little boy. Those are the two I remember mostly.

RP: How many kids did you teach all told?

ES: Oh, I think there must have been around ten maybe. I don't think there were more than that.

RP: And then you taught in a barrack room?

ES: A barrack room, yes. So I did that and that was about all I did. And prepare for teaching and getting my barracks room for teaching ready.

<End Segment 6> - Copyright &copy; 2010 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 7>

RP: Tell us about living in the barracks. What was that like for you?

ES: Well, it was certainly different. But then of course and then they built the dormitories and they were really nice, there were two girls assigned to each room in the barracks. And our barracks was H so we called it Heaven, our barracks was Heaven. And of course Martha and I lived in the same barracks. She wasn't my roommate, I had a teacher by the name of Arlene Hooper was my roommate.

RP: Can you describe the rooms to us?

ES: They were small with a closet I think with a curtain over the... I don't think there was a closet door but a curtain over the closet. And there was room for two twin beds and two dressers and that was about it.

RP: Did you have bathroom facilities inside the dorm?

ES: We had one main, I mean there was just one big bathroom that had showers and the commodes and the sinks.

RP: Now did commodes have partitions, doors to them?

ES: Yes, yes.

RP: You had a sense of privacy?

ES: Yes, and we had a kitchen where we could you know make popcorn or we always ate in the dining areas in the barracks.

RP: There was an administration mess hall, is that where you took your meals?

ES: Yes, that's where we had our meals. I think they were about twenty five cents a meal.

RP: And do you remember what type of food was served in the administration mess hall?

ES: Oh, we had good food, good beef, good pork. Of course during the season when the cantaloupes and watermelons were ripe here we really lived good.

RP: So would you have meat at every meal?

ES: It seems to me like we had something with meat in it at every meal, every dinner.

RP: How did you strike up a relationship with Martha Shoaf?

ES: I don't know. I think it was first started when we moved into the same dorm because I wasn't in the same barracks with her. This Arlene Hooper was in the same barracks I was and I can't remember who else was there, seems like there were four of us.

RP: In the barrack rooms, four to a room.

ES: Yeah, but in the dormitories there were two to a room and I forget how many rooms we had. And most of us were all teachers.

RP: If you can recall back to the time you spent in the barracks, was there any furniture there other than the beds and what were the beds like?

ES: You know, I can't remember. It's been too long ago.

RP: What do you remember about Martha? What attracted you to her as a friend?

ES: Oh, I think her outgoing personality. She made friends with everybody so easily. So we took a lot of hikes together and I never hitchhiked unless I was with Martha. She was a good hitchhiker.

RP: I can see her just kind of throwing herself out in front of a car so hey, stop.

ES: [Laughs] Yeah and they'd stop for her too.

RP: When you hitchhiked, where were you hitchhiking to?

ES: Well, she had made friends I think with everybody in every bureau of water and power people all the way up the whole valley so we would visit some of them. And that was always so nice because their lawns were so nice and green and all the trees so it was nice to get out of the hot sun of Manzanar. Although we would take walks out by the orchards and the trees and outside the camp and we'd go to the river, a little stream out here. And we made friends with some of the men at the airport.

RP: They were training pilots out there.

ES: Yes, and Martha's sister was up here training to be a pilot and she met a friend and the two women, they had a room at the dorm too.

RP: What do you recall about the airport?

ES: Well, one of the teachers made a good friend of one of the pilots and she married him, Burmay her name was, Burmay Rude, she was a commercial teacher at the high school. She taught typing and shorthand.

RP: She was a teacher at the Manzanar High School?

ES: Yes.

RP: And she married one of the --

ES: She married one of the pilots over there. After they were married he flew for the Flying Tigers but at Manzanar he was training well to the people was... I can't think of his last name. John, he was a movie star.

RP: John Payne?

ES: Yeah, John Payne and Clete Roberts. And so he was training them, he also was training Martha's sister and her friend, Nona, and so we made quite a few trips back and forth to the airport. Now there's no sign of it left.

RP: A few runways and that's about it.

ES: There's still some runways?

RP: The runways are still there.

ES: Of course they weren't cement they were just plain gravel.

<End Segment 7> - Copyright &copy; 2010 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 8>

RP: Elaine, do you recall what was your impressions when you first came into the camps the first few days and literally you're amongst ten thousand Japanese Americans, you had very little contact with that group in your life. Was that overwhelming to you?

ES: No, it wasn't. It just seemed to be natural after a while. We're all alike actually. Maybe our skin is a little different color or our eyes, but actually we're all human beings. I became friends with a lot of them.

RP: When you started school in the fall of 1943 you had an interesting first assignment and that was teaching boys football?

ES: Yes, boys football, seventh grade. I had never known what the word F-U-C-K meant. Here I was twenty-two and never heard the word. It was my first experience was to see it drawn and the word and what it meant drawn on one of the walls of the barracks of my seventh grade football class. But teaching football I just had the rule book and that was about all. Fortunately, I wasn't there more than a couple months and one of the Japanese men took over the football.

RP: Did you take the kids out and play in the dirt?

ES: Play in the dirt, yes.

RP: And how did they feel about having a woman as a coach?

ES: I think they would have probably preferred a man. I didn't have any problems with discipline, they were good boys.

RP: So you taught almost everything.

ES: I taught all the sports. We had tennis and softball, volleyball, basketball. We didn't have any archery, we didn't have any equipment for that. And soccer then wasn't a big thing so there was no soccer.

RP: What was the --

ES: My eyes are dripping. I have this tears, old age eyes I guess.

RP: What was the state of girls sports when you first started teaching?

ES: As I said, there were some intramural sports, but competition was not approved really for girls or women at that time.

RP: Even here in the camp?

ES: Even here in the camp. But there was nobody to compete except with the, we couldn't compete with other schools. So then one day I asked my supervisor if we might have a play day and invite the girls from Bishop High School and Lone Pine High School and I believe Big Pine had a high school. And so she got the permission and I think that's the first time that we had the Caucasians from the nearby towns come into the camp. And we had the play day and we had sports arranged and our girls playing the Big Pine or Bishop or Lone Pine girls. And so I thought that was a good thing that they could meet each other.

RP: And how did that work out overall?

ES: It worked out really good. It was a success.

RP: Was there just one play day or several that followed that?

ES: No, there was just one play day. It was toward the end of the year of '44, I think it was in May of '44.

RP: And what sports did the girls compete in?

ES: We had volleyball and we had baseball and we had basketball, those three sports.

RP: That's great. Were you aware of the... I think it was 1944, it might have been after you left camp that there was a football game between Manzanar High School and Big Pine High School?

ES: That might have been after I left. That would have been a good thing. There might have been the start of that year that before I had left before the start of that other year, I left in August. And then school started in September, it might have been that fall that the football team.

RP: I have a detailed question about that play day, but can you recall the reactions of some the Caucasian girls who came into the camp in reference to just being in the camp?

ES: I think they were all glad to see what the camp was like. I mean, everybody was friendly and I know the people in the surrounding towns weren't too happy to have Manzanar here. But I thought it was interesting and I was here to teach the Japanese and my husband was there fighting.

RP: In the Aleutians.

ES: Yeah.

RP: I wanted to talk about some of the specific sports that you taught here. First of all baseball, you taught baseball?

ES: Softball.

RP: Softball.

ES: Girls it was always softball.

RP: Were the girls pretty enthusiastic about that sport?

ES: Yes, they liked softball.

RP: And was there a particular area that you played your softball games or you just went out to the firebreak and found --

ES: It was the firebreak, yes.

RP: What did you use for bases?

ES: I noticed that today when we were driving around that there was a baseball field and the bases were... I think we must have had bags of some sort.

RP: And how about in terms of baseball, did you have enough bats, did you have enough balls? Were you always handicapped by a lack of supplies?

ES: Well, yes, we were handicapped with lack of supplies. I can remember requisitioning material for pennies where we needed to designate the teams. Like we would need some red material or green or blue and it took me months to get it. Well, during wartime they probably thought that pennies was a... didn't amount to much considering what they needed was guns and tanks and planes.

RP: Were there other supplies that were in short supply, like balls?

ES: Well, we always had enough to play a game. We didn't have enough for practice, we could've used more balls.

RP: And how many periods of PE did you teach in camp?

ES: I taught six periods a day. My smallest class was maybe around thirty-five and my largest class was close to ninety.

RP: Ninety?

ES: But I had seventh and eighth and ninth, tenth, eleventh, twelfth grades to teach.

<End Segment 8> - Copyright &copy; 2010 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 9>

RP: This is a continuation of an oral history with Elaine Stanley and this is tape two and, Elaine, we were talking about some of the sports that you taught at Manzanar. The other sport that you taught was volleyball?

ES: Volleyball, yes.

RP: And I was just curious what were the girls required to wear shorts or uniforms for PE here?

ES: I believe they had black shorts and white blouses. I think that picture that you showed of the group with me in the middle there, I think they all had --

Off camera: The girls athletic association. This one, I think they all have kind of lightest shorts or tannish shorts and white shirts, lots of white.

RP: You're actually in this picture.

ES: Yes.

RP: I'm going to ask you to hold that up for us and Kirk is going to scan in on that. Is that a good angle for you?

KP: Which picture?

RP: It's the GAA picture up here.

KP: I can do that.

RP: And she's right there.

KP: Hold on a second. And can you point that out again?

RP: And, Elaine, can you recall is this is a whole group of girls that were associated with the girls athletics association.

ES: Yes.

RP: Officers and --

ES: I don't know what the picture says it was, whether it was the athletic association group...

Off camera: Yeah, it had GAA.

RP: GAA. So were you involved in setting that organization up?

ES: Yes, I believe I was. I don't know whether my supervisor was the one really responsible for it. There's so many things I've forgotten.

RP: You talked about what the girls wore for their PE uniforms. How about yourself? Did you traditionally wear shorts?

ES: Usually I wore shorts except during the winter when I'd wear my ski pants to keep warm. It would get pretty cold out there in the firebreak and pretty hot in the summer.

RP: Right, tell us how the weather affected the athletic activities.

ES: Well, if we just couldn't be outside then we were in our barracks room and I always had a health class too.

RP: So on days when you couldn't be out playing, you would be teaching health?

ES: Yes, or we might have a... I would always give an exam on health or on basketball rules or volleyball rules or one of the sports.

RP: So did you organize teams, volleyball and some of the other sports?

ES: Yes, we had teams and I believe different classes would play against each other sometimes.

RP: In reading this book there was mention of some of the all star teams around the volleyball league and I'm just going to throw out some of these names to you and see if they ring any bells. Bombers, Huskies, Wheaties, Soccerettes, Pushovers and Netsters.

ES: I wonder why Soccerettes when we didn't have soccer.

RP: And according to this book the Wheaties came out as the undefeated team in volleyball league.

ES: Oh, was that among the girls?

RP: Amongst the girls. Basketball you said was your favorite sport you liked to teach and at the time that you were teaching it you were describing to us earlier how the different types of courts and things like that. What was it like here at Manzanar? How did you teach it?

ES: We had the two courts where the guards stayed in the one court and the forwards in the other court.

RP: And do you know where you played basketball? Where were the hoops located?

ES: It was on the firebreaks someplace, that was for sure. Everything was on the fire break outside.

RP: Was it... this auditorium was built in a firebreak.

ES: Yes, it was supposed to have been finished while I was still here but it wasn't finished until after I left. So I don't know which month it was finished. Do you remember or does it say any place? It must have been the end of '44.

RP: Maybe the end of the summer of '44, maybe shortly after you left.

ES: Yeah, because I think '45 they had the graduation here. But the graduation wasn't in this building in '44. In fact I don't know where they had the graduation.

RP: So you never had any involvement with sports inside the building?

ES: No, that would have been nice.

RP: Going back to basketball what were some of the fundamentals of the game that you tried to instill in the girls?

ES: I was trying to teach them techniques, how to dribble, how to pass, how to shoot, how to pivot, how to run.

RP: And during games that you had, who would officiate the games?

ES: Well, I think I mostly officiated the games.

RP: With a whistle?

ES: With a whistle. I had my whistle for years. In fact I think I just got rid of it when I moved from Big Bear to --

Off camera: No, I have it.

ES: Oh, you have my whistle?

RP: Still have the whistle.

Off camera: Yeah, it's at my house.

ES: [Laughs] It's still in existence then.

RP: That's great, well maybe next time you can bring it up with you and you could demonstrate.

Off camera: It's a good whistle, it's an excellent whistle.

RP: You must have gave it some quite a bit of use.

Off camera: It's a safety for hunting. It's a good whistle.

RP: So it served dual purposes.

<End Segment 9> - Copyright &copy; 2010 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 10>

RP: Some of these basketball games, did they attract spectators or crowds? Did they watch girls?

ES: Oh, not too much, no. Girls' sports weren't watched much, just by other girls who liked sports. I can't even remember parents coming out much to watch.

RP: In your opinion, do you feel like the girls athletic program at Manzanar was on an equal footing with the boys program?

ES: Yes, I think with Manzanar it was.

RP: But not in the case before?

ES: I don't think among the Caucasians that it was definitely was not on an equal footing like it is now. But here at Manzanar I think the boys didn't have anything more than the girls had.

RP: The basketball games, were they played... you said there were two courts but would it be considered a full court game or just a --

ES: It was a full court game, yes. Except the guards had to stay in their court and the forwards had to stay in theirs. So it was the job of the guards to get the ball to the forwards.

RP: And basketball like every other sport at Manzanar was played on dirt.

ES: Yes, I mean even tennis.

RP: Was it difficult for the girls to dribble on that dirt? Was the dirt packed down hard enough that it was relatively easy to dribble a ball?

ES: Well, I think it was a little dusty.

RP: Were there times where a dust storm would come up and you'd have to postpone a game?

ES: No, I can't ever remember postponing a game. But most of the games were held in gym class.

RP: How about disciplinary issues being a teacher?

ES: Well, I would find out that some of the girls would sneak away, especially the senior girls would sneak away from the firebreak and go home for lunch or go home at the end of the day. So my solution to that was to take roll call at the end of the day instead of the beginning.

RP: And that solved the problem?

ES: That solved the problem.

RP: Were there any situations where girls would come up to you and discuss or express their opinions or feeling about "why am I in this camp"?

ES: No, I can't remember that they ever did. The girls all seemed to be really happy.

RP: Did it feel to you coming into the camp a little later, many people talk about the sense of normalcy that was attempted to be created here. Did you feel a sense of normalcy, a normal situation?

ES: I thought there was. I think Ralph Merritt was a good administrator. I think he let the Japanese run the camp as much as they could, you know, that they were allowed to. They had their own police and their own fire department, their own churches. And the students were allowed to have their own clubs.

RP: And one of those clubs you were involved with, club called the Funsters?

ES: The Funsters, yes, it was a junior group and they asked me to be their moderator. And they were a good group of girls and I think nearly every one of those girls finished college. And I know before I was married the Funsters gave me a wedding shower and there was so much handwork done. I mean, I received one of the gifts was pillow cases and they had stenciled the pillow cases in a different design and colors and so I always appreciated those girls.

RP: Did they... were they involved in specific activities or were they just a group of girls that met?

ES: It was just a group of girls that met and a social group.

RP: They didn't promote dances or any other camp activities?

ES: Well, like the name implied, they were Funsters.

RP: Were there any particular girls that you remember from that group?

ES: Well, especially Kazi because we've kept in contact all these years.

RP: Tell us about Kazi.

ES: Well, she was an outstanding athlete, she was also an excellent student and I just forget everything. She lived an interesting life, she graduated from nursing school at... I think she didn't go to USC but she was at the nursing school at the USC General Hospital there in Los Angeles. And then later on she became head surgical nurse for Harvard General Hospital and married an engineer and he had been in a different camp. He wasn't at Manzanar.

RP: You still keep in touch with Kazi?

ES: Yes, she visited me at my board and care home about two years ago and her husband wasn't doing well at that time.

<End Segment 10> - Copyright &copy; 2010 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 11>

RP: Tell us about some of the other physical education personnel you worked for and with.

ES: Well my immediate superior was Elizabeth Moxley and I believe she had charge of the elementary school and the high school physical education and health program at Manzanar. And of course she was under Genevieve Carter.

RP: The superintendent.

ES: Yes.

RP: And so she would have been the one to evaluate your performance?

ES: Yes, she would have been the one to evaluate it. She was the only one among us that had a car. So every once in a while she would take us someplace, to Lone Pine or... and that first summer that I was here she took us to Tuolumne Meadows and we stayed with my parents who were camped up there at the time. That would have been probably August of '43.

RP: Were there other teachers that went with you too?

ES: Yes, I think Martha was one of them. I'm sure Martha was one, maybe Burmay Rude who married the pilot.

RP: Do you have any background about Elizabeth Moxley? Do you know...

ES: I don't have too much background. I can't remember the state she came from. She retired and went to Reno and she had, I think she had rheumatic fever when she was a child because she was left with a heart condition. I know she didn't do much hiking because of her heart.

RP: Does the name Yae Nakamura, is that familiar to you at all?

ES: She seems to be, was one of the helpers with the girls physical education.

RP: Did she help you out personally?

ES: Yes, I think we worked together there for a while. But then they hired Margaret Sawedell to take some of my classes and Margaret then taught general science.

RP: And you had a previous relationship with Margaret, didn't you?

ES: Yes, we had met on the tennis courts at Huntington Park High School, on Saturdays and Sundays we'd play tennis. And then we went to City College together, then she went to Berkeley for her junior year and then came to UCLA in her senior year and was one of my dorm mates. So when they needed another physical education teacher I recommended her and she was hired.

RP: So she took over a little bit of your work load?

ES: Yes.

RP: Sounds like you had quite a few classes and some large classes.

ES: Yeah, 'cause I had six classes a day.

RP: Did you feel overwhelmed by that?

ES: No, I was glad to be kept busy.

RP: Another name --

ES: The worst problem is trying to remember everybody's name.

RP: And pronouncing their names.

ES: Yes.

RP: Did you ever think about renaming some of the girls?

ES: No, no. [Laughs]

RP: Sometimes the teachers would give them you know American names to make it a little easier.

ES: No, I called them by their Japanese name or their American name, whichever one they like to be called by.

RP: Another name I'm going to share with you. Chicky Hiraoka?

ES: Chicky, I think she was one of our Funsters.

RP: The book mentioned her as a girls athletic manager.

ES: I don't know if it was the same one but I think I had a Chicky in the Funster group. I can't remember a girls athletic manager.

RP: Did the girls get any type of sweater or something, you know, that boys would always have letterman's jackets. Did the girls have any sort of identification of the association?

ES: You know I can't remember. I think they had something for their Funster group though. I think they had a sweatshirt or something that said Funsters on it.

<End Segment 11> - Copyright &copy; 2010 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 12>

RP: We were talking about Elizabeth as your immediate supervisor and she was the one who evaluated you. What kind of evaluation did you receive from her for two years?

ES: Well, I guess they had an evaluation once a year for the federal government demanded and mine was a very good for my first year and I know Elizabeth told me that she had given me an 'excellent' and Genevieve Carter said no first year teacher should ever have an 'excellent' so I was given a 'very good' which made me happy.

RP: And then you received another evaluation the second year you were here?

ES: You know, I can't remember the second year I was here. I know I was never rated as anything except a 'very good.'

RP: You never received an 'excellent'?

ES: No.

RP: Okay. One of the interesting activities that you taught here was baton twirling. So tell us a little bit about that.

ES: Oh, yes, I knew nothing about a baton, I'd never even held a baton, and when they told me I was to teach the baton class... and this was a summer activity. That's the first summer that I was here although it continued on through the year but mostly it was to give me something to do for that first summer. And so I was introduced to a young girl called Florence Kuwata and she taught me whatever I was able to learn she taught me. And then there were two outstanding baton twirlers, Kathleen and Cecelia, and I guess I got by anyway teaching them or they teaching me. But it was an interesting group and they performed for different occasions and there was some kind of stage that they had built and they performed on the stage. And they all had costumes. I know Kathleen's mother was very good at making costumes.

RP: And the mothers of those two girls --

ES: Yeah, they were competitors, each one thought their girl was the best.

RP: Can you hold that? So the girl in the middle is Florence?

ES: Florence, yes.

RP: Kuwata and then --

ES: The girl on the left I think is Kathleen and the one on the right was Cecelia.

RP: Great looking uniforms.

ES: Yes, yes. I don't know whether Kathleen's mother made all of those.

RP: Was that the most contact you had with parents?

ES: That was the most contact I had with parents, yes.

RP: Was the two moms of Kathleen and --

ES: Yes, I know Florence now relocated. When they were allowed to relocate she relocated to I thought she relocated to Chicago but I don't know. She was out of high school when I was here, she probably graduated the year before.

RP: So where did you go out to practice baton twirling?

ES: I can't remember, it must have been the firebreak. Everything was done on the firebreak. It wasn't in a room, it was outside. 'Cause those girls would throw up their batons pretty high.

RP: Couple other activities that you got involved with after it was... I think it was the first summer that you were here in August there was a festival.

ES: Oh, the Nisei festival, yeah.

RP: What did you do during that festival?

ES: Well, we were... our group, I don't know just whoever it was, was made candied apples and I can just remember it was a hot August day, we were in a kitchen someplace and these pots of boiling water and sugar and some cinnamon and red coloring, we made red candied apples. I don't know, I guess they sold them at the festival. Anyway, they all disappeared and I forget how many apples we did but I think it was a whole crate of apples.

RP: Do you know if the apples were from Manzanar here? There were quite a few apple trees.

ES: I don't think they were from Manzanar.

RP: Did you get involved in any of the activities that Japanese Americans promoted like that festival?

ES: Well, Margaret Sawedell and myself were asked to teach to a ballroom dancing class and we did that I think a night or two a week. So we got involved with the Japanese young people.

RP: And do you know roughly what age group those folks would've been?

ES: I think they were late teens and early twenties, most of them.

RP: Where did you learn to dance?

ES: Well, I had taken dancing at, mostly at City College when I was there I had several dancing classes, tap dancing and ballroom dancing. And Margaret, she was always the leader, she knew more steps than I did.

RP: So what were some of the ballroom dances that you taught here in the camp?

ES: Well, it was just one or two nights a week that we had it and it was in one of the barracks. I don't know which music we had at that time, radio or phonograph.

RP: How was the response to the class?

ES: Oh, we must have had about twenty, I guess.

<End Segment 12> - Copyright &copy; 2010 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 13>

RP: The second summer you were here you had another type of job at the motor pool. You worked under Nancy Zishank who was a camp escort?

ES: Yes.

RP: Tell us about that.

ES: Well, one of the trips that I went on was to take a group of men in a van to Barstow so they could catch the train there to visit some of their friends or relatives in the camps there in Arizona. Then another trip was a station wagon group that I took to Reno so they could relocate to Chicago or Cleveland or Kansas City.

RP: The trip that you took to Barstow, what type of vehicle did you --

ES: That was a van. No... just bench seats in it and no windows. And then we had a flat tire just this side of Olancha. So the men got out and thank heavens we had a spare. So we changed the tired and we went onto Barstow.

RP: You saw that they all got on the train and off they went.

ES: Yes.

RP: Do you remember wearing a badge during that trip that identified you as an escort?

ES: I don't remember.

RP: Did you stop along the way anywhere for lunch?

ES: You know I can't remember that either. All I know it was hot out there changing that tire.

RP: Other than Martha were there any other teachers that you, you know, struck up an instant friendship with or felt close to?

ES: Yes, Anita Christiansen who married one of the MPs next door, she taught... she was the art teacher. And another one was Burmay Rude who married the pilot teacher across the road. They were my closest friends, there was Margaret and Martha, Burmay, Anita, they were my closest friends here.

RP: Do you recall a teacher by the name of Louie Frizzell?

ES: Yes, he was the music teacher. And he left to perform in Oklahoma and Broadway. That's what I'd heard anyway.

RP: Do you remember... what do you remember about him here at Manzanar?

ES: Well, he went around a lot with Clyde who was blind. They were friendly, and Janet Goldberg, I think her name was, the three of them were very friendly. I liked them all but they weren't in our group.

RP: Did you have any contact with any of the military police socially or professionally?

ES: Socially, yes.

RP: I know you were engaged but did you --

ES: I was engaged but still... you always look around and see who's the best. [Laughs]

RP: So did you, where did you go with some of these guys? Did you go on dates and where did you go?

ES: Well, you wouldn't call them dates. We'd walk down the road and back. I was going around too with one of the workers over at the airport. All I can remember is that he got a jeep and I think he had too much to drink and we ended up in the Alabama Hills off, he hadn't made the turn and we went right out into the sagebrush in the jeep. I think that was about the last time I dated him. There was a nice one that I used to take a lot of walks with out there, Ernie, I think his name was. And he was a lumberjack, had been in northern California. Gosh, he must have been about six foot three and must have weighed two hundred and fifty pounds, he was big. He was very, very nice. And I often wondered if he... in fact I think I even invited him to my wedding. He couldn't come, he was the MPs, but now Anita Christiansen, she married an MP and he went down in a troop ship going over to England. They'd only been married maybe a year if even that long. She never married again.

RP: Did she marry him here?

ES: I don't know that she married him here or she married him in Long Beach. She was from Long Beach.

RP: On some of these visits with the MPs would they talk about what their experience was like here?

ES: No, it was more about experience as a lumberjack.

RP: How about Genevieve Carter, the superintendent of schools, did you have much contact with her?

ES: No, I had very little contact with her.

RP: The high school principal, do you remember?

ES: Mr. -- was that Mr. High or... I know there was a principal for the elementary schools and one for the high school. I never had much contact with the principal of the high school. My main contact was with Elizabeth Moxley.

RP: Did you get a chance to walk around the camp and see various areas of the camp?

ES: While I was here?

RP: A hospital, you mentioned you had an experience at the hospital.

ES: No, we would take walks and I went to the Catholic church there. I noticed the sign there today for it when we drove around the camp.

RP: Did you go on a regular basis?

ES: Yes, Sundays.

RP: Elaine, you said you had an experience at the hospital, the Manzanar hospital.

ES: Oh, they thought maybe I had appendicitis, I think I was in there a couple of days, that was it. Although I knew one of the nurses very well, Jo Haas, and she was a close friend with Elizabeth Moxley. The two of them did a lot of things together.

<End Segment 13> - Copyright &copy; 2010 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 14>

RP: Did you take any trips to Lone Pine at all?

ES: To where?

RP: To Lone Pine?

ES: Yes, quite a few to Lone Pine. We'd go there to shop. I went to the movies a couple of times, went to some social there were Roy Rogers and the Sons of the Pioneers, they were filming, making a film in the Alabamas. Mostly there to shop or bank.

RP: Were there any occasion that you recall where maybe some of your students or any Japanese American asked you to go shopping for them or pick up any special item?

ES: Yes, I think there were a few times. I went a few times to the Spanish Gardens there in Lone Pine which was a bar but they had delicious T bone steaks. There was one time when a B24 crashed over here at the airport and nobody was injured. I only remember the plane being dug into the sand over there. But a group of us went with some of those air personnel, we went to the Spanish Gardens and had our T bone steaks and our martinis or whatever. That was something different.

RP: Did you get a chance to hike Mt. Whitney at all?

ES: I had hiked Mt. Whitney in 1940.

RP: When you were at UCLA?

ES: When I was at UCLA, yes. One summer after spending the summer in Tuolumne Meadows, on our way home my parents took us to Whitney Portal and then we... this friend of mine, the two of us climbed Mt. Whitney.

RP: Did you do that hike in a day or was it an overnight trip?

ES: We spent one night. We left from Whitney Portals and spent the night at the base camp. And then the next day we climbed Mt. Whitney and Mt. Mueller and then climbed down to Whitney Portals that same day. And then my friend left to go back to Tuolumne, she took the bus and went back to Tuolumne and then I went back to Huntington Park with my parents.

RP: Was there ever any occasion where you were invited into a student's barrack room?

ES: No, I was never in any of the students' rooms.

<End Segment 14> - Copyright &copy; 2010 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<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.

<Begin Segment 16>

RP: What was the experience teaching at Manzanar here like for you, reflecting on it?

ES: Well, I really loved to teach. My husband didn't want me to work and of course I had so many children that I didn't think I could do a good job with both of them, teaching and raising a family. And then another thing that kept me from teaching again, I had a son that was paralyzed from polio and I didn't want him to go to a handicap school. I wanted him to go to a regular school and to do that I had to be around to take him to school and bring him home.

RP: Did you share with your kids your experience here at Manzanar as they were growing up?

ES: I think I've always mentioned it, yes. I loved teaching.

Off camera: We always had more fun visiting, Martha was always a visitor to our home and every year when we drove up 395 to go to Tuolumne Meadows to camp, every year we were woken up to say, okay here's Manzanar. As this building was still there and there were the guard towers so we always knew, we're passing Manzanar. Where are we? We just passed Manzanar.

ES: This building was used for maintenance.

RP: Yeah, after you left they did play volleyball in here and some other sports.

ES: Yeah, as soon as they got this building finished... but it took so long for them to finish it. I kept hoping it would still be finished in '44 so that we could... I can't remember just when it was started.

RP: And just to kind of go back to the story you shared about how your father passed away. Can you share that with us?

ES: Well, he always went to Tuolumne, he never missed a summer. And this year it was in 1954 he and my mother had stopped at Silver Lake to visit his cousin who was camped there. And the next day they drove up to Tuolumne and they'd played cards with friends of theirs up there. And my mother was going to go with him but she woke up with a headache and decided she wouldn't go. So he went with his friend, my dad was sixty-five, and the friend he went with was seventy-five, Joe Brenner was his name. And they hiked to Skelton Lake and that's cross country, there's no trail, and it's seven miles from Tuolumne while they were eating lunch his friend heard this loud kind of groan like, he thought it was a mountain lion. It was my dad having a heart attack. So then they... about an hour or so later he asked my dad if he felt like he could walk back and my dad said yes. And about a half mile from the lake he just collapsed and was gone. But he always said he wanted to die in Tuolumne Meadows with his boots on and this time he even had a plus with a limit of fish. So he was a lover of the Sierras, especially Tuolumne Meadows.

RP: Few more questions. How did your parents respond to the news that you were taking a job at Manzanar?

ES: You know, I can't really remember. They gave their approval I guess because... of course, there probably wouldn't have been anything they could've done. By that time I was twenty-two so I could make up my own mind. Anyway, my dad was probably glad it was here in the eastern Sierras that I was going to teach.

RP: Is there a particular sight, sound, or smell about the camp that you'll always remember?

ES: I think all those rows and rows of tarpaper barracks is the thing I'll always remember and the guard towers. And I wasn't sure about, you know, putting the Japanese in these camps. I certainly didn't like the way that they had to sell their belongings for practically nothing. I was glad it was called a relocation so that they could relocate which quite a few of the younger people did. I don't think many older people relocated but the young ones did. I was glad to see that. But then the air was full of animosity in the Los Angeles area against the Japanese, you know, for what they had done. That there might have been a lot of shootings and killings. At least they were safe here.

KP: I just have one question. You were here for, what, about a year and a half working?

ES: I think about fourteen months all together.

KP: So you came, worked, did your job then you left. Did you ever think while you were leaving what would become of these people? You know, did you ever think, well they'll be out in a couple years. What was your thinking on what their future was?

ES: Well, my thinking was that as soon as the war was over they would be sent and it was going to be awfully hard for them to get back into the circulation with the Caucasians and the difficulty of finding a job. But knowing the Japanese, that they'd make it, and they did. I was thinking of my Funsters girls and nearly every one of them went to college. And I figured that they had a very good education at Manzanar. They had some good teachers and I found that they always said you know how smart the Japanese students were. And then when I had them in class I realized they were just like the Caucasians, you had your smart ones who worked and wanted to get ahead, and you had the other ones that got their Ds and their Fs. One of the girls I liked the most I had to give an F for her grade in physical education and yet we both liked each other. She knew she deserved the F and she was probably one of them that escaped from the firebreak. [Laughs]

RP: Elaine, do you have any additional stories or memories that we hadn't touched on?

ES: I think we must have covered everything.

Off camera: Mom, on the drive when we took you said you walked through the orchards and then sometimes you would leave the camps through the openings in the barbed wire.

ES: Oh, I think I mentioned something about taking our walks usually with Martha and Margaret Sawedell and Burmay.

Off camera: I don't think they knew that you were exiting the camp through the openings in the fence and not through the main gate.

ES: Oh, no, because we wouldn't go by the main gate. We went out that way towards the mountains on some of our walks.

RP: Mary, do you have any other stories to share?

Off camera: That's probably about it. She and Martha have had a very very long relationship that was you know started here. And I always know although I've never met Kazi, I've always only always heard always about Kazi growing up.

RP: Well, thank you very much, Elaine.

ES: Well, thank you, Richard.

RP: On behalf of us pansy rangers and the National Park Service.

Off camera: The now pansy rangers.

ES: Yeah, 'course, I realize that now they've got so many lawsuits that they can't take some of these trips.

Off camera: I keep telling her that because that's my excuse for you guys, there's just too much liability with rangers leaping over rocks and leaving their followers clutching to rocks.

ES: Well, they really worked hard though in those days, the ranger naturalists. And on their days off they would go exploring to see where they could take somebody on a new trip that hadn't been taken before.

<End Segment 16> - Copyright &copy; 2010 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.