<Begin Segment 9>

KL: I hate to skip around like this, but I also don't want to keep you here until midnight. So I wanted to hear from you, Mary, about your father's gardening at Manzanar. Do you remember gardens he worked on?

MT: Well, he had, this was the first time he ever had time to... I must say that as a father, he did take one day a week to take we children as we were growing up, we would go to a park and he'd let us ride the merry-go-rounds and roll down hills and everything, take time to play, let us play. And so when the war happened and evacuation took place, this was the first time that he didn't have a job to do. So strangely enough, he took his hammer and screwdriver and a couple of tools with him in his suitcase as we were evacuated.

KL: It must have meant a lot to add that weight.

MT: It must have. And he took nails with him, too, to the Manzanar. And he took his work apron and a smashed-in hat with him, and he was ready to do something. He didn't know what would happen, but he was prepared with tools. And so he immediately started going around picking up driftwood, and he built a fence in front of our barrack. He even took a few seeds with him, he took gourd seeds, and I don't know if they were, I think marigold seeds that he brought with him. So he was planning ahead to do something. But anyway, there was a picture in one of the books that has a gazebo that he built, built an umbrella and a table and benches which were in front of our barrack, and so everybody came by to see that, because he put it up almost the first week we were there, he had already built some outdoor furniture, and brought rocks in and built a little garden out of it. And from what I understand from the forester that Jack interviewed with, that one of the people that he had interviewed gave my father credit for teaching this young man how to build that rock entranceway monument that was there.

KL: That was built during the camp days?

MT: Yes. And that, the young man that was the architect for that structure gave credit to my father for having taught him how to stack and make the rocks hold for that monument. Now, this probably happened after I left, but my father didn't stay there that long either, so he must have... but there was time that this young architect, landscaper, gave my father credit for teaching him exactly how to do the stonework.

KL: The person I'm thinking of is Ryozo Kado, who became, he was one of the major landscape architects for the Holy Cross Cemetery in Los Angeles. Do you think they knew each other before Manzanar?

MT: I don't know, I don't know whether they met in Manzanar or what, but that's what the forester told me, he's quite sure that he gave credit to my father for teaching him as a young man.

KL: Do you think your father and other gardeners coordinated at all about what tools and seeds...

MT: I don't know whether there was time to do that or not, I can't remember him going to any meetings or anything. So a lot of the gardens that were farmed, because when we went they showed us remnants of waterfalls and streams that were built. And no one had done anything quite like that in a few... I was there just a year, and my folks were there maybe less than two years all together. So I don't know how much my father did as far as the landscaping.

KL: What was your address at Manzanar?

MT: It was 23-10-4. I'm quite sure, we both tried to remember our addresses, but figuring out the sixteen barracks configuration, I'm quite sure it was 23-10-4.

KL: I read somewhere that your dad was involved in the Block 22 garden also? Were you around or do you remember him working on other projects?

MT: No, I don't have... I was gone.

KL: I was interested because that was the block that Harry Ueno worked on, who was the person who started the mess hall workers union and was something of a leader in Manzanar, and he worked on the garden, too, and I wondered if they had known each other, if you had memories of Ueno at all.

MT: No, I don't know.

KL: But it was a priority for him, it sounds like, to kind of make a mark on the place.

MT: To keep busy and beautify. To beautify with what was there.

<End Segment 9> - Copyright © 2012 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.