<Begin Segment 10>

RP: I'm gonna just return to Topaz for a little bit longer and then we'll get back to...

MK: Yeah, you know, I wasn't there that long. Just for my senior year in high school and I left shortly after that.

RP: Right. And tell us, share with us a little bit about what your feelings were about your educational experience during that last year in Topaz High.

MK: Yeah. I was in this one core class. We had this teacher who was fresh out of college and decided she would teach in camp. She was good. In fact, we had her for two hours every day because English and core, history and we just called it core. And she had the enthusiasm and she really drove our class. And everybody said, "Oh, your class is her favorite class," is how they put it. But I think because she was willing to work so hard with us, I think that's why we all excelled and a lot of us went on to college when we left camp. Until she passed away couple a years ago, she was in assisted living in Castro Valley and the group that got together with her every April, it was her birthday, it was mostly people that were in the core class. And of course once she passed away then we don't meet that often or anything, but the closeness is still there among us.

RP: What was her name?

MK: Eleanor Gerard. And then she married another teacher. His name, last name was Sacurak. Another good one was Dr. Goodman. I think he taught science. I can't remember anybody, outside of the choir leader, his name was Eddie Ino. Gee, he was good. And I can't believe that we sang the Hallelujah Chorus at Christmas. He whipped us. Koji said it was the best group he had ever heard in a high school, my husband said that. And he said too bad we didn't have a recording of it. I wish we had. But you know, I think I was fortunate in that I had these people who were driven to make us excel. Because you could have just sat there and done nothing. You would have gone automatically onto the next grade and everything like that. I had a shorthand teacher. And I thought what a, you know, what am I gonna do with shorthand? But you know you were just taking classes to fill up the day really. But by golly, she drove us. I made an A in that class and I thought oh my gosh, what's shorthand gonna do for me? But I think too that a lot of the people who were on the faculty, I think they realized that we had to make something of ourselves. I didn't feel like, I didn't feel mediocre. I knew they were pushing us. But then my mother was a teacher in Japan for a couple of years in a grammar school or something. Anyway, well she always pushed education. And I think it worked well with the group that I was in.

RP: How, how did the process work out that you were able to leave Topaz and continue...

MK: I beg your pardon?

RP: How did the process evolve that allowed you to leave Topaz and continue your education?

MK: The Quakers were granting scholarships. And this very good friend of mine was working with the Quakers. And he was... anybody he thought that would make it in college, he came around and he spoke to the parents and everything. My father didn't want me to go. My mother said yes, and that's the only reason I went. Because I'd never been out of the, the state of California before I went to Utah. And I was traveling, I was going to school with another good friend of mine that was in this group. Unfortunately she only went one year and then she moved to Minnesota where her sister had relocated. And, but there were two other Nisei girls who went to school there. And so it wasn't like I was the only Asian.

RP: And what was that gentleman's name?

MK: It's a Presbyterian college, Hanover College.

RP: Hanover, did you say?

MK: In Hanover, Indiana.

RP: Oh, okay.

MK: It's on, right on the Ohio River.

RP: Okay.

MK: It's more like southern influence because when we went there we were the first Asians. There were no people of color. They worked there but they weren't students there. But we must have broke the barrier. That college has foreign students from all over the world now. I think they encouraged it to happen. And when I get all these alumni news things and everything it's just a wonder that you see so many different races among the students. But I think too that it's a Presbyterian college and I think they worked harder at it, to broaden everybody's idea of who should be there and the kind of people you should get to know and all this kind of stuff.

RP: Just stepping back a little bit, did you have a graduation ceremony in Topaz?

MK: We had, with gowns, caps and gowns and everything. Yeah.

RP: And a prom.

MK: We had a junior prom, I mean a senior prom, yeah. So...

RP: And...

MK: It all came off real good. And then, course then all the other classes did the same. We had a yearbook. And we had a, we had a paper too. I worked on the paper. I worked on the yearbook. Because I had worked in junior high school, at Francisco junior high, I worked on the school paper there, and I enjoyed it. And then when we went to camp... well, you had to do something with your time, not just sit around, just go to school and then go home and do nothing. The, the boys had sports. I don't, some of the girls had sports. I remember some playing basketball and things like that. I wasn't so inclined that way.

RP: Did you or any other members of your family have any creative outlets at Topaz? Did you an outlet for your creativity? Arts and crafts or...

MK: No I didn't do that. I was just trying to think what I did after school. Well the choir, we had practice almost every day. I think that's why it sounded so good. And then Saturdays we just, well, I remember helping my mother with the washing and things like that. Because my two older sisters were working full time anyway. And then Chiz left camp and went to BYU.

RP: Right.

MK: Yeah. 'Cause her boyfriend was there. But...

RP: You said you worked in the library for a short period of time.

MK: After graduation, I worked in the library until I left camp. Yeah. And it was, it was an easy job because, well, like the kids, most of the children that were out in sports, they were out doing that and we didn't have a full library to begin with. It was like donated books and things of that sort. But I think I was lucky to have a job even if it was for a short time. Eight dollars a month.

RP: You took one trip to Delta too out of camp.

MK: I can only remember going once and it was more or less just to, I think we took our lunches and just to walk around the town and do a little bit of shopping. And I have to say, the town people were, they accepted the fact that we were there. There is a Topaz museum in Delta now, and I don't know how complete it is yet. We make kind of annual donations, a lot of us. But this Jane Beckwith, have you met her? Yeah. She's the one. She's the moving force behind it.

RP: Yeah, she's a mover and shaker. Yeah.

MK: So she's always come to the Topaz reunions and things. And then our senior class had some money sitting there so then there was a samurai exhibit at the Asian Museum San Francisco, and she came all the way over for that. It was good to see her.

<End Segment 10> - Copyright &copy; 2011 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.