<Begin Segment 9>

KL: Do you remember the trip from Puyallup to Minidoka?

SS: On the train?

KL: Yes. What was that like?

SS: Not very good. [Laughs] Not very pleasant. And when we got off, we got off the train and you looked all around you, like you're in nowhere. There's nothing to see, I mean, just sagebrush and maybe (tumbleweeds). We thought, "Where the heck are we?" Then they put us on a bus and then got to Hunt, Idaho. They call it a siding, I think railroad siding where we got off. No station, no nothing. It's hot.

KL: Was it August or September?

SS: September, (...) somewhere around there.

KL: Were there military police with you on the train?

SS: Yes, there was. At least there were police when we got on the train. They must have been on the train, too, do you remember? I don't remember.

KL: Did they, you don't remember really interacting with them.

SS: No, I don't think they could. They couldn't fraternize, is that what they call it?

KL: How long was the ride?

SS: I don't remember. Too long.

KL: Was your family all still together?

SS: I don't know if we sat together but we were all there.

KL: And you said there were buses that picked you up and took you to Minidoka?

SS: I think so.

KL: Do you remember your first impression of Minidoka?

SS: Not very pleasant. [Laughs] Because the camp was not finished. They sent us there, but it wasn't finished. The bathroom facilities, the toilets and all, they weren't finished. Well, you know how camp was, just six barracks on each side, and in the center was the mess hall and then the laundry, bathroom facilities. They weren't ready.

KL: What did you do?

SS: What did we...

KL: What did you do?

SS: There was an outhouse with about three or four holes; it was terrible. And the showers, they had those spigots, maybe half a dozen spigots. We're not used to bathing with other people. It was kind of embarrassing; I don't remember bathing there. And at night in the wintertime, it's very cold, and it snows. So at night we're getting ready for bed, put on our nightgown, and my mother would say, "Let's all go to the bathroom, the outhouse." So we'd put our boots on and put our coats on, hats on and everything, and then trudge out to the (outhouse), which was not close by. And then we'd go in one by one because we don't want to sit together. [Laughs] That was terrible. I remember that.

KL: Did you put up anything for privacy in the bathroom?

SS: No. Just, there were just holes, there was nothing, no way of putting up anything. And when they finished the main bathroom area, there were no partitions there either for showers and then for the, you know, when you have to go to the bathroom, there weren't partitions. Later on they put the partitions in. That was hard. Even now I don't want to go to the bathroom with other people. [Laughs] And then we had to go to the mess hall every day at a certain time.

KL: You had a scheduled time?

SS: Uh-huh, they had a scheduled time. And a lot of people like my sister, she used to hate apple butter, because we had apple butter for... but now she loves that. [Laughs]

KL: Really?

SS: So every time we got up for breakfast, she said, "Oh, apple butter."

KL: Apple butter must have been big. People remember that about Manzanar, too, although most of them say they didn't want it anymore after, after being there.

SS: There was something else, I can't remember... what was the other thing people hate to eat because it reminded them of camp? There was something else but I just can't remember because I didn't have any preferences or anything.

KL: What block were you in?

SS: Twenty-six.

KL: Do you know the rest of your address in Minidoka?

SS: Twenty-six, I think it's Barrack 6, and Room B. There's A, B, C, D, E, F. The A was the smallest, which had two people in it, and B was the biggest, five of us, six of us in there. And the middle two, C, D, were for smaller families. So we had the biggest room. With one potbellied stove, and one light fixture, one window. And when a dust storm came by, we just had lots of dust in our room. It was cold in the wintertime.

KL: Do you remember your, any of your neighbors from the building? Who else was in, who were your neighbors?

SS: The one... we had the same entrance, a couple, (Mr. &) Mrs. Kubota of the Kubota Gardens in Seattle.

KL: She was next door to you?

SS: Yes, he and she were next door to us. We used the same entrance. I can't remember... I know who they are, but I can't remember the names of the other people.

KL: What was their response to being in Minidoka? How did they...

SS: I don't know. We never talked about it, at least I didn't. I think we just, well, this is the way it is, and we just said, they said, "Shikata ga nai," nothing you can do about it. We're there, they put us there, what can you do? Even if you question them, what good is it gonna do?

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