Densho Digital Archive - Susan Brown Phelps Interview (denshovh-psusan-01-0011)

<Begin Segment 11>

RM: When your father retired, you mentioned that he had done those interviews with Art Hansen, and Art at one point had mentioned that they were working on annotating his diary. I was wondering if you knew anything about that project that your father had embarked on and how it ended up.

SP: Well, I only know that my father talked about it a lot in the last years of his life, and was very happy to be engaged in it. And he always talked about wanting to write a book about it and never did as far as I know. And I know that he was, I think he felt it was important to get as much of this written down as possible while he was still alive. And I think he was having trouble remembering things well enough by the late '60s. But he was doing his best, you know, and enjoying doing it. That's really about all I know about it. I didn't ever meet Hansen, I don't think, but I remember him talking about it a lot. And I have in my possession a lot of the materials that my father had kept during that period, so I have a box of those things at home.

RM: Do you know if you have the annotated diaries?

SP: Well, I have the original diary. I don't know about annotating it. (Narr. note: NB later found a copy of the original diary, and the copy of the typed transcript with RCB annotations.)

RM: Did your father ever talk about why he kept a diary during Manzanar when he was working here?

SP: He never... no, he didn't really. But I have a sense that he... I have a sense that it must have been a very exciting, interesting part of his life, time in his life, and that he had a sense of the historic importance of participating in something like that, even while he was going through it. So he must have felt some compunction to record what was going on. I think... my memory of looking at it is that I wish it had been fleshed out more, I wish he had written more. But he may have felt that, too, and it was, I'm sure it was a very busy time, my gosh. All the things they did, it was amazing.

RM: I'm curious to know what you think, obviously it's guesswork because your father isn't here to answer himself. But as his daughter, I'm curious to know what you think the impact of Manzanar was in his life and what he might say to that question.

SP: Yeah, that's a good question. I don't know whether he feels it was just an exciting interlude or certainly it impacted his future friendships and connections that led to the next things in his life, certainly had impact that way. I don't know that it shaped particularly his, any of his future attitudes about things, it's really hard to know.

RM: I'm curious, from a daughter's perspective, because what we get here are documents that he wrote and that kind of thing, very cut and dried information. But I'm curious about your perspective, if you had to describe what kind of man he was, what would you say?

SP: Well, I knew him... I was the daughter who was kept from knowing him as I was growing up through those years between the ages of about seven and sixteen, seventeen, eighteen. And I had adored him, you know, he was my dad, my daddy. And so I had this sort of idealized image in my mind of who he was. And I can remember arguing with my mother about wanting to see him, and she would ask me, "Why do you want to see him?" And I'd say, "Because for one thing, he's my father, but also I know he's an interesting person." And then when I did know him, you know, that was substantiated. He was a person, he was a curious person, he was, I think he was fundamentally a kind person and politically progressive, and I think he was an idealist. I think he had a good sense of humor, he enjoyed people, he enjoyed doing things, he enjoyed intellectual topics, he followed politics and history. I think he was probably a person who was skilled at reconciliation, helping people get along, bringing people together. Teamwork I think probably would have been in his mantra, and I think he, yeah, I think being a leader in this kind of an operation would have been, was probably really stimulating for him, he probably enjoyed it a lot. But I wish I had a chance to talk to him more about it now, I would have a whole different set of questions to ask him than I did in my thirties when I was still naive about these kinds of things.