<Begin Segment 9>

JM: And then in September, I think it was, we somehow got on a train, and with the shades closed, and somebody gave me a Hershey bar, which I held in my tight little fists. And when I decided to eat it, it was, of course, all melted. And then I was terribly carsick the rest of the way. [Laughs] Then I don't remember how we got from... but I think we went in convoys, those army convoys, from the train station or whatever, and to Minidoka.

The first days were, I remember a sandstorm once, and my aunt by marriage's mother and sister had just moved into camp, so we went to visit them. I don't know how we found our way to their block and back, because there was so much dust, and I can remember the tumbleweeds just hitting my legs, and it really hurt. I've never... you know, it was really the first day I really remembered. And then I also remember keeping warm by standing around bonfires. I also remember the men went out to get snakes. That must have been within the barbed wire fence, and they would go out in the morning, and they would come home Japanese-style with a long stick, with a bamboo stick that they carried on their shoulders, and there would be these rattlesnakes hanging from it. And I think every block the men went out and got rattlesnakes.

KL: What for?

JM: Cleaning up the area.

KL: Oh.

JM: So those were some of the first memories. I don't know whether we ate it or not, but anyway, it seemed like everybody had the rattles, which were supposed to be kind of good luck. And then...

KL: What was your center, what was your address in Minidoka?

JM: 37-8-C. And I went back on a pilgrimage about three or four years ago, and it was very nostalgic. We went on a charter bus from Portland, and I just looked at the beautiful Columbia, and I got angry that we got deprived of looking out at the beautiful scenery, even if we were being taken to camp. You know, when you're kids, it'd have been so exciting if we'd been allowed to look out and see what the scenery was out there. And the scenery looked even more beautiful than all the times I've driven to Eastern Oregon, Spokane, or Ontario. And they deprived us of that, and I just thought... and then we went into the camp the next day, and went into a barrack, and we went into, of course, there's just one barrack, but they were all the same, and so we went into what would have been Apartment C, walked in, and sure it was, one lightbulb, one black potbellied stove, and four army cots, four blankets. And the first thing I looked up was no insulation whatsoever. So no wonder my mother was always sweeping out the stuff. And I'm sure the windows were coated with ice in the winters. But, you know, when you're seven, eight, nine and ten... I guess I was ten, you really don't remember that. I don't remember ever being really cold, I don't remember being really hot, I remember the thunder and lightning, which Portland doesn't have very much of. And so that was pretty amazing.

KL: What did you think of it?

JM: Well, I was always frightened of thunder and lightning. I used to always go under the bed in Portland, whenever we had thunder and lightning, fall asleep under the bed, and I'd wake up, and I'd find myself in bed. [Laughs] My mother pulled me out and put me in the bed. But couldn't do that in Minidoka. And so...

KL: It sounds like your parents were pretty protective of you. Do you think that's accurate?

JM: Oh, I don't know. My father being an older... he was already pretty old when we went to camp. Because my sister and I were born when he was fifty. Because he didn't work in camp because there was no jobs, so he spent a lot of time whittling, and he made beautiful canes out of... I always forget the kind of wood that he used, it's the kind that twists around and it's not sagebrush.

KL: They talked about greasewood at the Nikkei Legacy Center.

JM: Greasewood, that's it, greasewood, yeah. He did a lot of, made some beautiful canes. He polished it to a, just where it's so shiny and then he shellacked it somehow. And he made a beautiful screen to separate, quote, the "bedrooms" from the "living room," and it was all put together with no nails. And we had that, and I gave it to the Legacy Center. And my mother sewed cloth, and it had a top that he had a professional artist draw a pine tree, the moon, and a crane flying, and it's just beautiful. And then my mother made a curtain that went on the two bars above and below. It's not that big, but it did separate, quote, the living quarters. Because at least their part of the bed, because they put two beds together, and then my sister and I had two separate beds. And then he made me jewelry, he carved a heart, and he made a ring out of a peach pit. And when you see the book The Art of Gaman, I don't know why, but that heart that he made me that was on the chain, he put a nail in and bent the nail over it. There's one in the book just like it. I just was amazed how close they made it. And there are very few things from Minidoka in the book, but then we had, the Legacy Center had an exhibit and people brought in things they made, and my goodness, it was just amazing. And my father made a puzzle which went to the Smithsonian for sixth months with the exhibit of The Art of Gaman, because Delphine came to Portland, and I had a copy of the book already, somebody gave it to me. And I went to have it autographed, and she asked for, if anybody had made toys. I told her about my dad's puzzle, and so she asked if they could borrow it for the Smithsonian. And then it's making its way to several places around the United States and then it's going to Japan. So I haven't seen it for about two years. And he painted the faces about a little square, and it has a maiden on the big major square at the top, and it has two long bars on the side, and one has the father and one has the mother. And then there's something that's like, supposed to be a guard, and then there's four small squares with young men's faces on it, and then a yard man and a maid. And the object is to get the young woman down here with the two on each side of the young men, and have all of the parents and the yard man and the maid up above without taking it out of the block. And it just moves so smoothly, so he must have just done a beautiful job of just... but he was sort of a perfectionist when it came to making things, because he made the family shrine, or we have the Buddhist shrine. The things in the shrine are purchased, but the frame and everything, he made before we went to camp. I have that in my room. So I don't know who kept that, but somebody kept our things, because my sister's dolls were in perfect shape until she put 'em up in the attic of her house and the mice got to it.

KL: Did your mother work in the...

JM: My mother worked in the mess hall for sixteen dollars a month. Seemed like everybody got sixteen dollars a month, whatever job you had.

KL: Was she a cook?

JM: No, she's just a waitress. So all three meals, before and after she was... and Dad ate with the men, and we ate with our friends, I guess. And each block had its gang of young teenage boys, and you certainly didn't have dinner every night with your family. That was one thing that was destroyed during those three years.

KL: A lot of the leadership in Manzanar, internal leadership, was connected to mess halls. Do you think that was true in Minidoka as well, did your mom ever talk about...

JM: I think we had our... we called them our "blockheads," but they were block managers. And everything that was, that seemed that the blocks did. But another interesting thing was that, you know, they pounded mochi for New Year's. And again, Ted Hachiya told me drove, he was allowed to drive from Minidoka to Salt Lake and pick up the special rice for making mochi. But every block, I think, had their own group of people to... and I remember the young men pounding, and I always said it was the littlest, oldest lady in the block who stuck her hand in and turned the rice over. But I don't know how many usually did it, but I do remember at least one year when we had mochi for New Year's, it was such a cultural, you know, event, that we had mochi. And Ted told us how he got the rice, so pretty amazing.

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