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KL: I should have checked the date. Today is September 16, 2013. I'm Kristen Luetkemeier for the Manzanar oral history project. We're here with Kerry, maiden name Christenson, Powell, in the west theater at Manzanar for an oral history interview. We'll be talking some about Kerry's parents' lives both before and in the Owens Valley, and Kerry's experiences with visiting Manzanar War Relocation Center, but also just as a community member in Lone Pine throughout her life. And Rose Masters is here with us, she's operating the video camera and may have some questions, too. And an important one to start off with is, Kerry, do we have your permission to record this interview and to keep it in the library and make it available to the public?

KP: Absolutely.

KL: Thank you, we really appreciate it.

KP: It would be great if we could see it down the line.

KL: Oh, yeah, we'll send you a copy. Yeah, and if you want other copies for family or whatever, we can send you a bunch.

KP: Great.

KL: So because your parents did spend significant parts of their lives in the Owens Valley, I want to start off talking about them and what you know of the families that they grew up in. So let's actually start with your dad. Would you tell us first his name and when and where he was born?

KP: My dad was Clarence Christenson, he was born in Hibbing, Minnesota, and in the mining, they worked in mining, and that's how they ended up coming to California and looking for jobs. And his mother, his father (Carl Gustof) died fairly young, and his mother was Anna, and his (brother Arthur came from Arsburg, Sweden, and his) sister was Mildred. They decided to have a bed and breakfast in Cartago to serve the people that were working on the lake, on the (Owens) dry lake.

KL: Were his parents both immigrants?

KP: Yes, from Sweden.

KL: Do you know anything about their decision to come to the U.S. or what that impetus was?

KP: No, I really don't. They came to Minnesota, of course, because of the jobs, and...

KL: Were they in mining at that point?

KP: They were in mining, working in mining. But they didn't stay in that cold climate very long before they headed west. [Laughs]

KL: Yeah, where else were they? It looks like they moved around some.

KP: And I don't know where the parents met exactly, but I'm assuming it was in Minnesota. And they came... well, they ran the bed and breakfast for quite a while, serving the guys, as I said, that were working on the dry lake.

KL: Do you know anything about their travels in between, where they were? It looks like Kentucky.

KP: No, I really... well, Kentucky was the other part of the family. My dad's brother (Arthur) ended up down there in the mining, and that's where my cousins were born, two of my older cousins were born there in Kentucky, I can't tell you exactly where. But I've been there. [Laughs]

KL: Oh, yeah?

KP: I got to visit where my aunt was buried and where she grew up (in Kentucky) and all that, so that was great. And then my mother was born in Lomita, and down by Pasadena, and she was Ruth Fryer, from the (Jim) Fryer clan, and her parents homesteaded in Soledad Canyon (north of Los Angeles), and that's where she grew up. (Grandpa Jim) worked for the road department for many years and did a lot of hunting in those hills above Los Angeles.

KL: What did your mom recall of Soledad Canyon?

KP: She was fine with it, 'cause she loved going hunting with Grandpa, with my grandpa (Jim), out in the desert. But then when it was time for her to go to high school, there wasn't any. There weren't any. My dad happened to do a poster when he was in school in 1924, and I have that poster that said we need more schools, which they did at that time. But my mother was sent to boarding school in Lancaster at the time, and she boarded there, was in the same school as Judy Garland Gump, (later a movie star). And she met a girl from Cartago, well, from Olancha, (California), whose mother was the postmistress in Olancha. So the girls became good friends and she came up with her, probably to get away from her big family. She had a lot of siblings down in the canyon.

KL: Who were her siblings?

KP: Oh, aunt... bunch of aunts and uncles. They ended up staying in that same area pretty much, most of 'em. But anyway, she came up to Olancha and helped work the post office, and that's where she met my dad from Cartago.

KL: Who was that friend who took her, do you know?

KP: I'm trying to remember her name, and I can't -- it's not coming to me right now. I stayed in touch with them for a long time, and she ended up over at Boulder, Boulder City in Nevada, when she was married. And they stayed in touch for many years because they were really good friends.

KL: How old was your mom when she started coming to Olancha?

KP: She would have been probably sixteen or seventeen, because she was in school fairly young. And she was a pianist, too, she was almost a concert pianist, she was very good at it, very good at it. She would play piano in the Nazarene church in Lone Pine for many, many years, and did accompaniments for a lot of singing groups in the (Owens) valley because she was so well-known.

KL: Had she grown up in that church, the Nazarene church?

KP: No, not necessarily. They helped establish that in Lone Pine.

KL: Your folks did?

KP: My folks did, along with the (Bill) Skinners and other families in Lone Pine, because she could play piano. [Laughs]

KL: Yeah, that helps.

KP: That was a place for her to play all the time. We loved the classic music because we got to hear it at home all the time. And that added another dimension to my life, all through my life, as well as the art that I have branched into. But anyway, I'll let you ask another question.

KL: Oh, did she, when she was working for the post office in Olancha, did she do that for multiple summers?

KP: Several summers, yes, 'til they got married. And she dated some of the boys from Olancha, of course.

KL: We interviewed Dorothy Bonnefan as you know last week, and she said her mother came up also as a late teenager to work in Olancha, and that her mom was well-received, her mom and the other young woman.

KP: Yeah, oh, yeah, because there were a lot of young men working on the lake and on the ranches, too. And probably the girls, there was a scarcity of young women, I would imagine, I don't know. I don't know what that was.

<End Segment 1> - Copyright © 2013 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.