Densho Digital Archive - Susan Brown Phelps Interview (denshovh-psusan-01-0003)

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RM: Would you mind talking a little bit more about what you know of the Inyo Mono Association and the people that were involved in that, if you remember their names and your father's relationships with them?

SP: You know, it's been a long time since I talked to him about all this, so my memory fades about it. But there were lots of stories. Father Crowley was very big in their lives, a person named Norman Clyde whom I should know more about than I do. The fellow that, the man who ran Chalfant Press, can't remember his name.

RM: George Savage.

SP: George Savage, yes. He was very central in their lives, I know. Dave McCoy, they were friends with him, they had stories about this crazy guy having this idea he's going to go up into this mountain area and put up a rope tow so they could all have more fun skiing. Yeah, I don't know who all otherwise was in... other family friends were people like a doctor, the older doctor who was sort of almost retiring at that time named Dr. Anderson. The doctor who delivered me whose name I've been trying to recall all morning. His last name was Scott, he was known as Scottie, but I can't remember his first name right now. Close family friends were the Ferbers, Richard Ferber worked for the telephone company. Aim Morhardt and his wife Gen. Aim was a teacher. They were both teachers in Bishop for years, he taught art in the high school and was an artist himself. Fabulous people, I just love them and I'm still in touch with their daughter. Those were the main people I can think of right now.

RM: I know that Ralph Merritt helped with the Inyo Mono Association. I was wondering if you know if that's how your father met Ralph Merritt for the first time.

SP: I was wondering about that last night myself, whether my father was instrumental in bringing Ralph into it or vice versa, and I really don't know about that. I don't know what Ralph's role in the Inyo Mono Association was. I can remember a story my mother telling me about how Ralph had had some kind of illness, and I don't know whether it was mental illness or a physical illness, but he had supposedly come up to the desert to die. And it was a very dark time in his life, and then somehow through being associated with all these people, he just came back and became, had a whole renewal in his life and became this leader. But I don't know enough about the background, wish I did.

RM: Do you know how your father became involved? I know he was involved in Manzanar before the name Manzanar was even used for the place, this camp. Do you happen to know how it was that he became involved in that?

SP: I don't. I've always just had the impression that he got involved. You know, the war broke out, he was working in the Inyo Mono Association trying to promote, do this job of... it was like, I see it as like the chamber of commerce of the area, right, and he was trying to do that work. The war broke out, he was too old, probably even physically wouldn't have qualified to become a soldier, had a young family. So what was he gonna do for the war effort? So I've always just thought that he had this, they were looking for people to take these jobs, he applied and got it, that's the way I look at it, but I have no idea if that's how it worked.

RM: Did he ever talk about his reaction when he found out about the bombing of Pearl Harbor?

SP: No, I'm sorry to say, don't know.

RM: I was also curious if he knew any Japanese Americans before the war, if he had any family friends.

SP: Not that I know of. But I do know that both of my parents -- and I know more about this from my mother because I spent more time with her -- were just, became just so respectful and almost enamored of Japanese through this experience. And even my mother, who unfortunately tended to have terrible prejudices, which I think were too typical of people of their generation, I would say they had, she in particular, both of them had prejudices in favor of Japanese through this experience, they were so in awe of how the Japanese accepted this fate in many ways, and made the best of it, and put their whole energy into creating Manzanar, making Manzanar a more livable place, and an American town that they lived in as Americans with all the civic activities and schools and all the things that go on in American life. And creating beautiful gardens, creating the Japanese garden and turning, making things beautiful even though it was a temporary thing, just throwing their selves into it.

And the way it went on from there in my own life with my mother was that when we were living in South Pasadena and she went back to school to become a teacher and became a teacher, she chose to teach in an area of East Los Angeles that was heavily populated with Japanese people. And she made friends with many of the parents of her students and continued to enjoy associations with Japanese people.

RM: I'm curious, knowing that your mom later went on to become a teacher, what was she doing during the time that your father was a teacher in Big Pine and later during the time that he was working in the camp?

SP: I was thinking about that just last night, about how this was still the era where the wife didn't work. And I don't know what's happened to our economy, but now everybody has to work in order to make ends meet. But in those days, that's not how they did it. They still didn't have a lot of money, but they didn't think of the second person working. I suppose it must have been my brother, I'm sure my brother had been born, so I'm sure she was taking care of him. And I do remember talk about how she might have become a teacher or worked for the school system, but in those days they wouldn't hire the spouse of a person working in the system, it was against the rules. So she didn't have that opportunity. That was a topic of discussion.