<Begin Segment 9>

KL: So did you graduate from San Fernando High School?

HF: Yes.

KL: What year was that?

HF: 1940, summer of '40.

KL: It sounds like it was important to you to graduate from that school if you asked your mom to stay back.

HF: Yeah, she was back. Oh, she came back from Japan, we had already graduated, so she didn't come to our graduation.

KL: What do you remember of the ceremony?

HF: The graduation? It was outside and it was hot. And we had a big class.

KL: How many people?

HF: Must have been about three hundred.

KL: That is big, especially for a rural school.

HF: Uh-huh, because, see, they came from Canoga Park and North Hollywood, all different areas, that's why.

KL: What did you do after you graduated, with your time?

HF: No, I couldn't go out, see, I didn't learn how to drive. My sister drove. She went out...

KL: Was she class of '40 also? You said you caught up?

HF: She went on, at that time, they had "mother's helpers," so she went to work as a mother's helper for thirty dollars a month.

KL: What did that job entail?

HF: You helped the mothers take care of any children she has, and cook, and whatever the mother wanted you to do. So she did that for a while until the war broke out. So I didn't drive, so I couldn't go anywhere, so I stayed home. And I worked out in the flowers, with the flowers.

KL: You mentioned that there was some consideration at least, maybe on your family's part, of marriage at that point?

HF: Pardon me?

KL: You mentioned in your writing that maybe at least in your parents' mind, there was some consideration of marriage for you and your sister at that point? Tell us about that.

HF: Well, you know, those days, they said if you're over twenty-five, you're old maid. So you had to get ready for marriage. But they really didn't show us anything.

KL: Who would talk to you about marriage? Would it be something parents would do, or teachers?

HF: Teachers. We were going, we were in high school, they gave us more information than my parents.

KL: What did you think about marriage at age eighteen?

HF: It's just one of the things that, that's life, one of the things that's going to happen.

KL: Did you... how were you supposed to meet your future spouse?

HF: Well, they came... you know, when we were growing up, there was a lot of fellows that came out to the, to our farm, to the, where we were living, they'd come over to look us over, that's what it was.

KL: Was it like they would come to tea in your home, or there would be a dance, or how did that happen?

HF: No, no dance, just when we're working out in the field, they would come and look you over.

KL: What would happen if they liked the looks of somebody?

HF: It never happened, so I don't know. But there were some girls that got married that way.

KL: Were you hoping that that would happen, or what were your thoughts?

HF: No, I wasn't hoping that. Because most of the fellows came from Japan.

KL: And that wasn't what you were...

HF: That wasn't what I was looking at.

<End Segment 9> - Copyright © 2013 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.