<Begin Segment 1>

RM: My name is Rose Masters. It's August 23, 2013. We are in the West Theater at Manzanar National Historic Site. This interview is with Susan Brown Phelps, daughter of Robert L. Brown, reports officer and assistant director of Manzanar War Relocation Center. This interview is being conducted for the oral history program at Manzanar National Historic Site in Independence, California, and will be archived in the site library. Susan, do I have your permission to record this interview?

SP: Yes, you do.

RM: Thank you. To begin, let's just start with where you were born and when, what your birthday was.

SP: I was born March 1, 1941, in Bishop, in a little, in what was then the hospital, which is an old house that I think still stands.

RM: Do you remember what street you lived on in Bishop?

SP: You know, I'd have to look it up, but I intend to go there later today actually to try to find the house that I went to, which was a small house that my parents had just built. And I saw it about fifteen years ago, and it was... when my parents built it and we lived there it was on the very edge of town. There was wild beyond it, and now it's across the street from the school.

RM: Do you remember... do you remember Bishop? You were very young, but do you have memories of it?

SP: Well, I do have memories of it because when I started second grade, we moved to South Pasadena, and I lived there until I graduated from high school. But my mother and I -- my parents were divorced when I was about seven -- my mother and I frequently came to Bishop for Christmas, to spend Christmas with friends, and to come over Labor Day for the rodeo. And so I have a lot of fond memories of Bishop and close family friends that nurtured me, who nurtured me as a child and teenager, so I feel attached to Bishop.

RM: Can you tell me a little bit about your parents, your parents' names? Let's start with your mother if you don't mind. What was your mother's name?

SP: My mother was Marjorie Strong Brown, and she was born and raised in Chicago and came to California when she was college age, mainly because her parents had retired to Los Angeles about 1927 or '8, somewhere in there. And my mother enrolled at USC, and that's where she met my father Robert L. Brown.

RM: And where and when was your father born?

SP: He was born the same year as my mother, 1908, but he came from Modesto, California. And I don't know much about his background except I think his father was a, like a agricultural broker of some kind. I don't know whether it was cattle or more agricultural products, farm products, but I think he did that kind of work. And I guess my dad graduated from high school and decided to go to USC or something like that. (Narr. note: RLB Oral History states he was born in South Pasadena but went to high school in Modesto.)

RM: Did your mother have any siblings?

SP: She had an older sister named Elaine. And Elaine also lived in Los Angeles all her adult life. She was a schoolteacher.

RM: Did your father have siblings?

SP: I think he had a brother named Dick. I've seen photographs of him. He was, had some kind of disability, I don't know what it was. I don't think it was a mental disability, but more of a physical disability. And he died young, and I don't really know the circumstances. I know that his, my father's mother was a staunch Christian Scientist, and my mother was always critical of that, because she felt that my father hadn't had proper medical care as a young person, and who knows if that was, played into the problems of this sibling.

RM: Do you know, did your father... he went to high school in Modesto?

SP: As far as I know he did.

RM: And then decided to go to USC from there?

SP: I guess so. I don't know a lot about that.

RM: Do you know what he majored in at USC? (Narr. note: He had a degree in English with an emphasis on journalism.)

SP: I think journalism. I think my mother did too, actually. And I don't know what his real ambitions were, whether he wanted to go into the newspaper business or not. He was also very interested in music, he hadn't had any musical training, but he learned to play the drums and he was very active in, I guess, the USC band, and sort of pick up bands that friends put together. And my mother went for a summer to Lake Arrowhead where he was the band leader. I know he led bands in the Los Angeles area too sometimes, it was the era of the big bands, the swing bands, and he was very into it. But I remember asking my mother once why he didn't go into that as a career, and she said, well, it was because he really didn't have any musical training and didn't feel he had the skills to make it in that business. So when they graduated from college, well, they actually had eloped, and my mother had been disowned by her parents because of it, so they were kind of on their own. And it was the height of the Depression, it was a very hard time financially. And so it's my understanding that the reason they wound up in this area was that my father got a teaching job teaching English at Big Pine High School, and that's what brought them up here.

RM: Do you know what year it was?

SP: I think it was 1933 maybe, possibly '34. I don't think it was as early as '32, somewhere in there. (Narr. note: It was 1935.)

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

<Begin Segment 2>

RM: Did your father... did he get a job in journalism before becoming a teacher?

SP: Not that I know of, but I don't know a lot about what all they did.

RM: So the job in Big Pine, do you know how he found out about it or how he got hired into that position?

SP: Yeah, I wish I did know. I wouldn't be surprised if it was through the USC employment office or something like that, looking for teachers in an area where it was relatively hard to find people. But during that economic crunch time was an opportunity for a young person.

RM: Had he been to the Owens Valley before, having grown up in California?

SP: I honestly don't know. I doubt if either one of them had been up here. I wish... you always look back at all the questions you didn't ask, but I wish I knew more about how it was they wound up (in Bishop). But I do know that they wound up getting friends of theirs to move up to this area, too, some college friends. And so people like Russ Reagan who ran the major pharmacy in Bishop for many years was one of their college friends. And there was a woman named Gladys Wasson who was, I think, she taught business classes, she taught typing or something at the high school in Big Pine. And she was spoken of a lot, and I'm not sure who she was in the picture, whether maybe she was a connection from Los Angeles, I honestly don't know.

RM: Did your parents ever talk about their first impressions when they arrived in Big Pine?

SP: I remember stories my mother would talk about, how I think they loved the community feeling. I think it was hard, you know, they were living in a very simple, small house, and the wood stove for heat, and chopped wood for that. I think... it's funny that I can't remember whether my brother had been born already, I guess he must have been. So maybe he was a baby. He was born in (1935). I kind of think they didn't come up here until he had been born, so that would give us some clue about when they came.

RM: Did your dad talk about his feelings about his teaching position? Did he like teaching?

SP: I think he enjoyed it, yeah. I think I asked him once why didn't continue with teaching, and I think a lot of it probably had to do as it would today, with the fact that you couldn't make much money, and he wanted to do more, do other things. He became very enamored of the hunting and fishing life up here, and got very involved in that. He loved the beauty, the natural beauty of the area, hiking in the mountains and so forth. I think that's how it eventually led to my father becoming head of the Inyo- Mono Association and helping to form that. Because as they got to know people in the area, there was I think just a group of them that became interested in promoting, the possibility of promoting the area as a recreation center for Los Angeles people and helping to develop the area. I often envy them for the opportunities they had then, when California was just in its nascent stages, really. They knew all the leaders, they were part of the leadership group that started things on their way for the Bishop area before the war.

<End Segment 2> - Copyright © 2013 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 3>

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.

<End Segment 3> - Copyright © 2013 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 4>

RM: So when your dad first started working for, I guess it would have been the army, beginning the WCCA, do you remember him ever talking about what his specific job duties were in regards to the beginnings of Manzanar?

SP: No, unfortunately, I never talked with him in that kind of detail about it.

RM: Did he talk to you about his later duties at Manzanar and what kind of things he did here?

SP: If he ever did, I don't remember the details of it. The main thing I remember about talking with him about Manzanar was that in the last years of his life, he was being interviewed by Art Hansen about his experience, and he was very pleased to be doing that, spent a lot of time at it and going over the transcripts and so forth. And so it was, it became an active matter in his thinking, and when I would see him, which was not very often, I can remember talking to him about that. The main thing I remember is asking him about what it was, how it was that he could participate in something like that, which at this time, which was in the (early '70s), just seemed like such a, how could we ever have done that, how could we have ever dislocated all these Americans, and how could they have come so willingly, and how did this even happen?

SP: And I remember taking away from that his view that in the ('70s) we could look back on it and see how terrible it was, but you have to put yourself in that place at that time and see that there was such fear of the Japanese invasion, there was hysteria about sabotage of Japanese people, and that basically at the time they looked at it as a matter of protecting the Japanese. Which seems very hard for me to imagine from this vantage point, but I can see at the time how they might have felt that it was as much to protect the Japanese from hate activities as to protect other Americans from terrorist activities, so to speak. So it was... they all had convinced themselves that it was the best thing to do at the time, and they were all doing their jobs and doing the best they could.

RM: You'd mentioned a little earlier about how the Japanese Americans in Manzanar did work very hard to turn this into a beautiful place and a real community. And your father was, as you know, integral in the Manzanar Free Press, and you'd mentioned his relationship with the editor, Roy Takeno, yesterday. I was wondering if he ever talked about the Manzanar Free Press and Roy Takeno.

SP: You know, I don't remember a specific conversation about that but I do know that he was in touch, I'm pretty sure it was Roy that he was in touch with during the period that he was being interviewed by Art Hansen, and he was asking Roy about his recollections about things. And I remember reading something in the papers I have at home about Roy writing back and saying, "Gosh, I don't remember about that anymore," or whatever. So I think they kept in touch 'til the end, so they were good friends, I think.

RM: I was curious, actually, about the friends that he made at Manzanar or in the Owens Valley because of what happened at Manzanar. Ralph Merritt came in in November of 1942, and I assume that from that point forward he and your father must have worked closely together. What do you know about their relationship as coworkers, as friends?

SP: Well, I know... I wish I knew more about to what extent they knew each other before this experience, I don't know about that. I know they were very close. You know, it was harder in those days because communication wasn't as easy as it is for us now. So when we, like my father, our family left this area in probably the fall of '44 to go to Washington, D.C., and Ralph was still here. And so I've always felt that my father and Ralph were very close and remained in touch, and I don't think they ever had opportunity to spend a lot of time together after the Manzanar experience. I just know that the way I experienced it later was that both my mother and father were in touch with him and my mother was very adamant about my knowing Ralph, because she admired him so much, and she wanted me to know him. And my father felt, I know, felt that way, same way, too. It was difficult because after my parents were divorced, my mother didn't want to have anything to do with my father and she didn't want me to have anything to do with my father, so it was very hard. There was quite a period there where it was, it would have been lovely if they had been in better communication.

<End Segment 4> - Copyright © 2013 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 5>

RM: When your family left Manzanar... well, I guess you and your mother and your brother would have left from Bishop, but when your father left Manzanar, can you tell us a little bit about why that came about and what he was going for?

SP: Well, looking back again, I don't know enough about the whole history of Manzanar to know why he would have left at that time. It must have been that it was winding down so much that they didn't need his position filled anymore? I honestly don't know how it all evolved, but he did get this job with UNRRA, which was the organization that was working with the displaced refugees in Eastern Europe, and maybe other parts of the world, too. But I know he was involved with the work of people in Eastern Europe. And so we went to Washington, D.C., lived there until the war ended, and all I know is that my mother was unhappy about our, about going to Washington, and she took me and my brother up to Palo Alto where she had this fantasy that she would live with us while my father was working in Washington, and she was going to enroll me in a certain preschool that she admired, and my brother would have a good education. And I don't know exactly what happened, but I suspect that she couldn't find housing because of the war, and there maybe wasn't enough money to support two households or something? I don't know, but in any case, I remember vividly this trip we took in our family car, which was an old Plymouth station wagon with wooden sides. And she found through a newspaper ad or something, (a man) named Ken (Richter). He later became one of these travelogue people who would do films, he would travel around the world and do films and then go around giving lectures. And somehow he became the person who drove with us across the country, and I remember this trip quite vividly. And so then we were in Washington for the last part of the war. I have certain memories of that.

RM: I want to step back just very quickly. When you were still in Bishop, and you of course would have been very young, but I was wondering if your brother or your parents ever talked about any repercussions in the communities of your family because your dad worked at Manzanar. If there was ever any blowback from that.

SP: Interesting. Yeah, that would be interesting to know about. I don't know. I certainly never felt -- and going back to Bishop afterwards, I certainly never had anybody say to me, "Oh, how did your father work in the Jap camp?" or anything like that. No, never felt anything about that.

RM: Did your brother ever talk about his memories at the time as a slightly older child?

SP: Sorry to say I never really talked to him about it.

RM: So in Washington, you said you had memories of being in Washington. What are those?

SP: Oh, gosh. Well, I have memories of going to nursery school and I had a friend named Patty Hackman, we did things with her family. I can remember having to do blackout nights when they were afraid the... or maybe they were just practice things or something where we would have to put dark curtains on the windows and turn out all the lights. And I can remember finding my parents through the glow of their cigarettes. [Laughs] They were both terrible smokers all their lives, and they paid for it, too. And I can remember their, my mother having me take a drag on a cigarette so I could see what it would be like, and that was what did it for me. I never had any interest in cigarettes after that. I can remember playing out in the rain on a tropical downpour in the summertime. I can remember driving down to Dupont Circle to pick up my father from work, and I still, now my daughter lives near Dupont Circle. And when we walk by that building, I say, "That's where my father worked and where we picked him up."

RM: And that was the headquarters for...

SP: UNRRA.

RM: Do you remember being scared during the blackouts as a childhood experience of war?

SP: I don't think I was... I think my parents were good about making it not seem too scary, yeah. Something we had to do.

RM: In your father's diary he mentions that he got a job offer to go run a camp in southern Europe. Do you know if he ever did that?

SP: No he did not do that. That was a big deal in our family, and my mother... the idea was that the whole family would go over there, and my mother refused to do it. She was very adamant about his not doing that, I gather she was not that much in favor of his even coming to Washington to work. When I first used to hear those stories I would think, "Oh, Mother, why weren't you more adventurous? That would have been such a neat experience." And now at my age, I look back and I say, "That would have been something to go over to Europe at the end of the war with all the hardships that were over there." It would have been really hard with children, young children. So I don't blame her any more about it, but it's a reflection of my father's sense of adventure, I think, that he wanted to do something like that. Another memory I have is Christmas in Washington and how we received from Bishop a box of gifts from friends. And in the box was desert holly, and what a wonderful treat that was, and I remember that that was a wonderful recollection of the place we'd left behind.

RM: It sounds like your mother had fond feelings for Bishop, especially considering how often you visited afterwards.

SP: Yes.

RM: Do you think she would have preferred to stay in Bishop instead of moving?

SP: Yeah, that's a good question. It's a really good question. I don't know what she thought about the Bishop schools, and I went to first grade in Big Pine. After the war we wound up coming back to Big Pine and there was an apple ranch that's just outside of Big Pine that I tried to find yesterday and didn't succeed, but I'm going to try again. I don't know the full story, but what happened was that we went there to try to make a go of this ranch, I guess. I think my parents always had the, one of their ambitions was to run some kind of a resort. They had spent summers in Yosemite working in Camp Curry, and they loved that life, being around vacationers and having a good time and outdoor life. And I don't know whether they thought maybe they thought, maybe they could turn this apple ranch into a resort or what. I know my father worked at Glacier Lodge that summer. There's a story that I think I dimly remember of me riding a horse at age probably five or six, riding a horse and being so excited to show my father that I was riding a horse that I rode the horse right into the lodge. [Laughs]

Anyway... we lived on this ranch for a year and I went to first grade in the Big Pine school. But during that time, my mother had my brother go and live with family friends in South Pasadena so that he could attend the junior high school down there, because I think she didn't think the Big Pine school was good enough for him. So I'm not sure whether she would have wanted to live, stay in Bishop or not, or whether she would have wanted to move down to the Los Angeles area anyway.

RM: Do you know the years that they were working in Yosemite in the summertime? Was that when he was teaching in Big Pine?

SP: It could well have been. I think... I remember stories about my brother being three, so that would be 1936. So, yeah, in the late '30s probably is when they did that.

<End Segment 5> - Copyright © 2013 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 6>

RM: And just to jump back to Washington, D.C. for a moment, do you know specifically what your dad's job duties were after he decided not to go to southern Europe?

SP: I don't know what he did, no. I know he left the job when the war ended. So it must be that because he didn't go abroad, maybe he lost the job, or maybe my mother made such a fuss about being, not wanting to be in the east anymore, that they decided to come back to California. You know, the war was disruptive to all kinds of families, and mine was no exception. And I don't know why it was so hard to go back and pick up where they had left off, whether that even was what they wanted to do, I honestly don't know. I know there was lots of upheaval, there was lots of problems between my parents so that, which eventually led to the divorce, so it was just a really rough time in general for those few years after the war.

RM: They came back to the Owens Valley after Washington, D.C.?

SP: Well, we first came back... we came back to Manzanar so my father could write the reports, and then after that we went down to Southern California in this trailer that we had been traveling with across the country, and interrupted our trip so that he could come back and do those reports. And we were in the Los Angeles area, I went to kindergarten for a few weeks in Burbank, I know, which was not a happy time. And I think my father was looking for work. I don't know it all evolved, but we wound up on the ranch for a year, and I gather that it must not have gone well, because it only lasted a year. And then we wound up going back down to South Pasadena and renting a house there, getting started with life there, and I started second grade there.

RM: When you returned to Manzanar so that your dad could write, I take it, to write the final report, do you have memories of what it was like and where you were at the time?

SP: Well, I just have dim memories of being here, and we have a photograph of me on what I think is my fifth birthday, in front of one of the white buildings I was reading about where the administration lived. So I have dim memories of being in that space sleeping and stuff, but very dim. I don't remember where we ate or what I did all day or how long we were here really. Could have been a hard time, my mother could have been complaining, who knows?

RM: Do you know if your mom was on board with the idea for the ranch in Big Pine?

SP: I think she was, I think she was. But she became disillusioned with it, I think. She used to complain about how hard it was to drive me down to town to play with friends, for instance. I went through a phase where I wanted to learn how to roller skate, and there was only one small square of cement in front of the cold storage barn on the ranch, and it wasn't big enough to roller skate. So I would beg her to drive me down to some tennis courts in town, and she was very annoyed by that. I think it wasn't that far, it's just sort of a reflection of where she was at that time in her life. I don't know a lot about it.

RM: You said you went to first grade in Big Pine?

SP: I did.

RM: Do you remember who your teacher was?

SP: Yes, Ashee Earl, and she was a wonderful person, I loved her. She was a great teacher. She was a family friend also, she was kind of a family friend.

RM: Do you remember any of your classmates in Big Pine?

SP: The name Jimmy Newman comes in, I think he was, I think that was in Big Pine where he was a friend. And we were friends with the people who ran the gas station at the corner of the road that goes up that now looks to be a Shell station. I've been trying all night to dredge up their name. They lived in the house that is still there right next to the gas station, and they had a son who was roughly my era.

RM: Does Nicholas ring a bell?

SP: (Jimmy) Nicholas, yes, yes.

RM: One of the Nicholases lives in Independence now.

SP: Okay.

RM: I don't know his name, the elders that you would have been...

SP: Yeah. And what else do I remember? I remember being enamored of tap dancing during that year and performing in some school play or school talent show or something, and singing the song "Peg of My Heart." [Laughs] Oh, dear.

<End Segment 6> - Copyright © 2013 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 7>

RM: So when you had to leave Big Pine, do you remember being excited, or how did you feel about leaving?

SP: I imagine that it was a hard time for me to make that transition. I don't remember a lot about it. I can remember really enjoying being on the ranch. We had chickens, which I got to feed. We had a cow, a milk cow, I remember going with my father up into the pasture to get the cow and bringing the cow back, and trying to learn how to milk the cow and not having big, strong enough hands, but working with my dad with that. I remember my dad slaughtering chickens to eat and being fascinated by how he cleaned the chickens, and finding partially formed eggs in the chicken. Climbing trees, going fishing, there was a little pond, trout pond in front of the house, and fishing in there, either by myself or with my dad. Playing in the orchard, climbing trees, hanging on my trapeze. It was for me a very happy time to be there. My mother made chili sauce in the fall, and the smell of the chili sauce out in the yard is something I remember. Picking the apples, the smell of the apples in the orchards, you know, it was a great atmosphere, environment for a child.

RM: Was your family selling the apples, was that what your business was?

SP: Yes, I think so.

RM: So when they decided to sell the ranch...

SP: I don't think they owned it. I think they leased it or they were... I think it was some kind of business deal with whoever did own it. Who knows, but I think it didn't go well.

RM: And next they went...

SP: To South Pasadena. My father was looking for work, and he was kind of working his connections from the war. And one of them, I noticed a photograph in the Manzanar book, Ned Campbell is named there. And Ned Campbell was another friend that he kept in touch with. And it was through Ned Campbell, somehow Ned Campbell had gotten involved. I think maybe he had worked for UNRRA too or something. But somehow Ned Campbell was in touch with people in the Philippines who had somehow gotten involved with disposing of surplus military equipment from the war. They must have privatized that in some way, the government. So they were... they were arranging to sell old Caterpillar equipment that had been transported over to Asia for the war effort. And through that connection my father got a job working for a Caterpillar dealer in Tacoma, Washington. And I remember flying with my mother, my first airplane ride, up to Tacoma to check it all out. And driving back down the coast with my parents back to California. But that was about when my parents broke up, so in the end, he went there and took that job, but my mother and I stayed in South Pasadena, and they then got divorced.

RM: And was your brother still in junior high down there at the time?

SP: Well, he was by then into high school. He was with us, three of us, until he graduated from high school.

RM: Did you ever meet Ned Campbell?

SP: You know, I don't think I ever did. I feel like I must have. And I'm sorry I didn't because he was always talked about, but I don't remember meeting him.

RM: Do you remember --

SP: He lived in South America, I think, a lot, after the war, in Peru or something. I still have possessions that are gifts that they sent to us, you know, souvenirs of the area.

RM: Did you get to see your father regularly after your parents split up?

SP: I did not. It was a great sadness to me, the situation, my family was what it was. But I really did not see much of my father at all until I was about sixteen and then I saw him just occasionally until I was in college, then I saw him a little more. But I never knew him as well as I wanted to know him.

RM: And your mom during this time, you mentioned she was working as a teacher. Could you tell me a little bit more about that?

SP: Well, she went back to school to get her credential when my father left, and became a teacher. She taught first grade for several years, and Robert Hill Lane school in East Los Angeles. I realized later that she really only taught for, only worked for about ten years of her life, from, say, '53 to '63. But it was during the period that I was in junior high and high school and college. And when I went abroad in college to study in Germany, I wanted to stay longer over there, and she was ready for an adventure, so she applied for a teaching job at the Army schools in Germany and got it. Taught for the year over there that I was studying on my own in Berlin, so we got to travel some together and spend some time together, which was great, and again, a sense of her sense of adventure. In '63 she remarried a man that she had dated for most of my high school and college career and moved with him to Pittsburgh where they lived for about fifteen years.

RM: You mentioned that the part of Los Angeles she was teaching in, the high school had a high population of Japanese American students.

SP: Elementary school, yes.

RM: Elementary school, thank you. Did she ever meet anyone who had been in Manzanar or in any of the camps during the war?

SP: I'm sure she did. She never specifically talked about whether they were from Manzanar or anything. She never really talked much about Manzanar except in these kind of general terms of admiring their achievements and so forth. I never really had a sense of how often she even came to Manzanar, because we were living in Bishop. And my impression is that my dad would come down and work all week in Manzanar and stay in Manzanar and then come home for the weekends. And I'm sure that was hard. I was an infant and a baby, toddler, to have him gone all week and my brother was in elementary school. And I'm sure she came down sometimes, we must have come down to visit, but I don't recall doing it and I don't... of course, I wouldn't, I was too young. But I don't recall her talking about it, but she must have because she could describe it.

<End Segment 7> - Copyright © 2013 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 8>

RM: Where did you go to high school?

SP: South Pasadena.

RM: And I was curious about, you mentioned that you studied abroad in Germany in college. I was curious, where did you go to college and what did you study?

SP: I went to Stanford and I studied history. I was, actually wanted to be an international relations major, but I wound up being a history major, that's the way the credits worked out.

RM: Why did you decide on history?

SP: Well, I was just always fascinated by history, still am.

RM: Did you have a specific focus?

SP: Well, European history. I was very wrapped up in, of course, German history. This was not that long after the war, so I was very interested in all that whole thing and then I became very, I was at Stanford in Germany, and a group of us made a trip to the Soviet Union in just the height of the Cold War period, and we were among the first even traveling into the Soviet Union. We made this trip during winter break by train into the Soviet Union. So I became very enamored of Soviet history and Russian history. I wanted to go on in Russian area studies and was not accepted into the graduate program I wanted, so I also became, wound up going to graduate school in education. My mother telling me, "You've got to get your teaching credential so you're always prepared to work, make a living if you need to, Susan." So that's what I did.

RM: Sounds like motherly advice. I'm curious what your impressions, first of all, what year was it that you went to the Soviet Union and what your impressions were?

SP: It was the winter of (1960), March of (1960), and it was a monumental experience for all of us who went. There were, like, thirteen of us American college students, sophomores and juniors, and we were shepherded around by the Intourist people, you couldn't wander around loose in the Soviet Union. We went to Moscow, Leningrad and Kiev. And we, you know, it was a real confrontation with Communist way of life, and very eye-opening for all of us. Many of us admired the philosophy, the theoretical philosophy of Communism, but when we came head-on with the way it was being implemented in the Soviet Union it was a real eye-opener to see what living in a totalitarian state was like. Of course, we were also in Germany which was not that far removed from having been a totalitarian state. And so it was the ultimate experiential education, I'll tell you.

RM: What year did you go to Germany? Was that the same trip?

SP: It was the same time, yeah, we were there... we arrived at New Year's beginning of 1960, end of '59. So I was in Germany from January 1960 'til the fall of '61. And the second year I studied, I went alone at the Free Anniversary of West Berlin, and again, the height of the Cold War, when there were all the troubles with people fleeing East Germany into West Germany through West Berlin, which was isolated within East Germany. But it was the, I left in July, and August is when the wall was, the wall went up to try and stop all that. So this was the height of talk about what's gonna happen in Berlin, and will there be a confrontation with the Russian government and East Germans about stopping the refugee flow. It was a very interesting time to be there.

RM: That's fascinating.

SP: It was, it was great.

RM: Did you study German?

SP: I did, and history. Classes were in German, so I took a crash course to improve my German. When I left there I was pretty fluent, but it's gone now pretty much, sadly.

RM: When did you return to the United States? That would be 1961? Where did you go?

SP: Well, I went back to Stanford to finish. I had to, had my last year and then I had to go an extra quarter because I only got two-thirds of a year credit for my junior year abroad, so to speak. So I was there 'til December of '62, and then I went to Massachusetts where I was enrolled in the Harvard Graduate School of Education for the master's degree.

RM: I'm curious to know what your dad and your mom thought about... you said your mom joined you in Germany, which spoke to her sense of adventure. Did you ever know what your dad thought about your obvious willingness to go and study in Berlin?

SP: He, in the end, he supported my going. He was, it was, in a way, surprising to me that he was... there were old school parts of him. I think he felt... he was not enthusiastic about my staying in Germany, but when I gave him this big sales pitch about why I wanted to stay, he kind of caved. You know, he said, "You should become a lawyer, you're so persuasive." [Laughs] But then on the other hand, he also didn't see any reason why I needed to go to graduate school, because I was just going to get married and have children, and why would I need to work? So in the end he did help me with graduate school also. I think he was, when I came back, he was impressed that I was fluent in German, and he enjoyed my stories and I think he was glad that I had done that.

<End Segment 8> - Copyright © 2013 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 9>

RM: This is tape two of an interview with Susan Phelps at Manzanar National Historic Site, August 23, 2013. The videographer is Kristen Luetkemeier. There is a note taker, Alisa Lynch, and also she's acting as observer, Kristen is also taking notes. Susan, we were just talking about your returning to the United States after being in Germany and studying at Stanford, and your father's feelings on that. I wanted to return very quickly to your apple ranch in Big Pine and ask you were that was, if you recollect what street it was on and how to get there.

SP: Well, I tried to find it myself last night and did not succeed. I did get there in 1996. So the best of my recollection is that it is, would be west of town towards the mountains, and not very far out of town, not more than five or ten minutes out of town. And it's just, I don't know, nestled up in there. When I saw it in 1996, it had been converted into a place where boys who, juveniles who need better direction or something were taken or living, some kind of center. And my daughter and I went up in there and we just sort of wandered around, found the house where I had lived, everything looking very familiar from photographs that I have, and I took pictures which I have since compared, and you can see that it's the place. So it was fun, and I was hoping to see it again on this trip, but I haven't found it yet.

RM: I hope you'll be able to find it later on the trip.

SP: Yes, yes.

KL: It sounds like it's pretty far north in town.

SP: Yes, I would say so, yes.

RM: Let's jump back to your decision to go to graduate school and how you made that decision, specifically what you studied. You mentioned that you went into education, is that right?

SP: Yeah, I got my master of arts in teaching degree and secondary education. I taught history for a couple of years in the Boston area. But teaching was not my thing, education is still my thing, but I really wanted to get involved in international education, field of international education. But basically my life went, took other directions, so I never really got involved in that until a year ago when I went to Africa for ten weeks to volunteer in a secondary school for girls in Kenya.

RM: What are those other direction that your life took?

SP: Well, I wound up in Washington, D.C. and worked in the Library of Congress legislative reference service doing writing projects related to education for Congress. And then during that time, the Congress passed an International Education Act in 1965, and I got all excited about helping to implement that act, that would be right up my alley. So I followed where in the Education Department it was going to be implemented, and applied for a job and got it. And that was where I met my future husband. This was the height of the Johnson era after Kennedy had been assassinated, and still a lot of idealism about government and things that it could do to improve society. And sort of one of the first disillusioning experiences was the fact that Congress never funded the International Education Act. So after my future husband and I had worked for a year on getting ready to set up this administration of this act which never then could happen, after we were married, we became disillusioned with working for the government and left Washington to seek our fortune in the world of small businesses. And we did that, we wound up living in Vermont and then California and Massachusetts and later in Florida, operating small businesses. For twenty years we were in the used and rare book business, and we did that in three places: in Santa Barbara in the Book Den, which still exists, and we created the Book Den East in Martha's Vineyard, and the Book Den South in Fort Myers, Florida, we had a lot of fun for twenty years doing that kind of work.

RM: What got you interested in the book business?

SP: Well, we determined that we would make a living running a small business, and so we thought, well, we would go to real estate agents and say, "What businesses do you have for sale?" They would say, "Well, what kind of business would you like, would you be interested in?" And we'd say, well, we don't want to sell shoes. [Laughs] We looked at various things and, "Book business, that sounds good. We love books and love reading," so that was kind of how we backed into it.

RM: What year did you get married?

SP: 1967, end of 1967.

RM: Were you still in Washington at that time?

SP: Yes. We worked for another... we left Washington in the spring of 1970.

RM: What's your husband's name?

SP: His name was Richard. He died in 1996.

RM: How many children do you have?

SP: We had one daughter, Elizabeth, who has just turned thirty-two and she is a lawyer in Washington, D.C.

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

<Begin Segment 10>

RM: I was curious to know a little bit more about the trajectory of your father's life. I think we got to where he moved to Tacoma, Washington, in order to work for Caterpillar. What happened from there in his career and where he moved?

SP: He worked in Tacoma for several years, I can't remember exactly how many. And then I don't know exactly why, but he had an opportunity, I guess, to transfer to a Caterpillar dealership in Phoenix, Arizona. And he had moved there, I think he moved there probably around... I don't remember whether it was the late '50s or early '60s, probably the late '50s. And he worked there until he retired. He retired probably, maybe even before he was sixty-five. His health began to decline, he had heart problems, and so he worked there until he retired. I know he enjoyed living in the Phoenix area and he got involved with, up at Lees Ferry with some kind of historic property that, again, he was interested in history always, too. So I remember going up there with him and seeing this place.

RM: Did he remarry?

SP: Yes, he did. He left my mother, actually, to marry Charlotte Hayhurst, was her maiden name. And they were married for a long time. I think they got married probably around 1951, '52, and were married until he died in (1976). And she lived on, she only died a couple of years ago in her nineties. I kept in touch with her 'til the end.

RM: How did they meet?

SP: She was working here at Manzanar, I think, in like a secretary, administrative kind of job. (Narr. note: This is not correct. She worked for a government office in San Francisco that administered the Relocation Centers.) She was a young woman, again, the wartime, a job opportunity. She came from Cedar Rapids, Iowa, and somehow got involved in a civil service job, was transferred somehow to this place, I don't know exactly how it all happened.

RM: Do you know, did your father, when he was either in Phoenix or any of the places he lived after the war, did he ever come back up to the Owens Valley for any reason?

SP: I was thinking about that last night. I don't... he may have, and I didn't know about it. I know he kept in touch with many people that he knew here. But I don't remember hearing any stories of coming back here. And I am puzzled about it, and wondering why he didn't want to come back here, because he was clearly enamored of it at the time that he lived here with my mother. It may have been an emotional issue, or it may have been that Charlotte didn't want to come to the place where he had lived happily with Marge, or who knows. Or maybe she didn't want to come to a place like this, I don't know.

RM: But your mother did continue, you mentioned returning back up here. Did she do that all of her life?

SP: She didn't do it after she married my stepfather and they moved east. Then eventually they moved to Sedona, Arizona, where they lived the last ten years of their lives. And I don't think they ever came here.

<End Segment 10> - Copyright © 2013 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<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.

<End Segment 11> - Copyright © 2013 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 12>

RM: When was it that you became aware of sort of the historical import of Manzanar, especially since you were studying history in college?

SP: Yeah.

RM: I'm personally curious about when Manzanar... today, obviously, it has great historical import, but in the '50s, just after it happened, and in the early '60s, were you aware of it as something that was really important in American history?

SP: I think I was not, actually, 'til probably in the '60s is when I became more aware about the whole thing. It's curious how those of us who live through these periods had a whole different perspective about them when you were going through it as when you look back on it. So as a teenager, I think it was just, to me, something that my family did, I didn't even think about the import of it, you know. It seems horrifying now to think of that, but it's true. And even today I talk to people about how my father was the assistant director of Manzanar, and they sort of look at me aghast. You know, because people today even have opinions about it ranging from a moderate understanding of... a balanced understanding of what it was all about, and looking at the relocation of Japanese within the context of the war period. And those who were on the other end who just think that they were concentration camps, it was horrible. You know, it was horrible, but they were not concentration camps. And reacting and wondering if they will be looking at my family with a critical eye, "Oh, her father did this horrible thing." So it's interesting, but most people have a pretty understanding view of it.

RM: How often does that come up in conversation for you, the fact that your dad was the assistant project director here?

SP: It comes up with some frequency, actually. People ask me about my background, and, "Where are you from?" I'm more and more... I'm freer and freer about talking about it. There were times when I would be careful who I mentioned it to, it's interesting that way.

RM: I know that... I'm assuming this is the first time you've seen the exhibits here at Manzanar.

SP: Yes, it is.

RM: I'm curious to know, first of all, what you think of them, and second of all, what you would have us, what you would like us to share with the world and the education we're trying to do here at this site.

SP: Well, the first time I saw it was yesterday and I was really favorably impressed with your exhibits. I thought they were wonderful and did a pretty good job of recreating what it might have been like to be here, what it might have been like for the people who experienced it. I mean, when you have ten thousand people, you have ten thousand stories, so it's really hard in a small exhibit to convey the range of experiences. I would say one thing that I have learned from the reading that I've done that I didn't notice too much yesterday was the, how shattering an experience this was for particularly older, the older part of the population, how it just destroyed their lives, and many of them died of broken hearts, I think, as a result of this experience. And now being seventy-two myself, I can see what that would have been like, and how the young people were much more able to adapt and adjust and go on with their lives without horrific bitterness. But that might be interesting to show that a little better. And the other thing I'm curious about that I didn't see much evidence of is what happened to these people afterwards. When they went on with their lives, how hard was that for everybody, and more about the property they lost. I mean, their wealth was totally destroyed and that must have just been so hard for all those families. And that we did so little so late to try to help them with that, I think it's remarkable that Japanese Americans by and large, the ones that I come against which aren't huge numbers because I don't live in the West Coast anymore, but that they seem to have as little bitterness as they do about the entire episode.

RM: Do you remember when the reparations and redress was happening?

SP: Yes, I do.

RM: What were your opinions at that time?

SP: Well, I was glad something was finally being done, but I felt it was, again, too little too late.

RM: I don't know if you've had a chance to walk around the administration area here on the site, even anywhere else in this camp, your father's footsteps would have been... he was so involved. I was just curious what it was like to be here and know that your dad had spent so much time, two years of his life, and hard work, on this very site, probably in this building where we are right now. What does that feel like for you?

SP: Well, it's amazing. Like I was saying to you earlier, it's amazing to think about having been an adult coming through periods where I worked hard on things myself, and looking around at the achievement that Manzanar was in creating a town and a physical town as well as a society, a civil society among the people living here in such a short time. I can't imagine what the work life was like, what the day was like. It must have been amazing, especially since he was commuting to Bishop and worrying about his family back there. It just must have been an extremely intense period of his life. And I just wish I knew more about it. I wish I could... I had a movie that would show me what a day in the life of Bob Brown was like then, or all those people. It's really quite something.

RM: I wish we had movie, too.

SP: Yeah, really. But they did a tremendous job, I mean, they did an amazing job working together to make that happen.

<End Segment 12> - Copyright © 2013 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 13>

RM: Well, I was going to ask Kristen, do you have any questions that you'd like ask Susan that come to mind?

KL: Yeah, I think I have a couple. Oh, I wondered about how, you mentioned you had some conversations you had with your dad in the 1960s, and I wondered how his thinking about Manzanar and maybe even his role in it, but just Manzanar and this event took place, how his thinking on it evolved or changed in different periods.

SP: Yeah, that's a really good question. I don't know exactly. I'm sure his perspective about... well, I feel sure that he, by the '60s, shared with many Americans the sorrow, perhaps, of having done that to the Japanese. I think... I still wonder sometimes about why there weren't more voices to counter the hysteria and the need to relocate the Japanese. And I was thinking last night, the only thing I can compare it to is our experience with 9/11 and what I view, personally, as an extreme overreaction to terrorism. And because we've been attacked in one place, we've got to start a "war on terror" and invade Iraq. Our American government seems so often to overreact to situations and feel they have to do something. And I think that must have been what happened when Pearl Harbor happened. I can understand the fear of a Japanese invasion of the mainland itself. Times were so completely different then. I do think that people like my father and Ralph Merritt had a sense of violation of the civil rights of the Japanese that was happening through this relocation and they didn't like that. That's why they worked so hard to make, I think, to try to create an environment in the camp when they would feel as free as possible even though they couldn't leave, but that their everyday life felt free and their speech was free and their activities were free and they were participants in American life in a "normal" way as far as schools and activities and finding work and being able to be entrepreneurial in a small way and so forth. But I'd love to know how much it was really bothering them that these people had lost everything, they were suffering from loss through their relocation here, the emotional difficulties all these people must have been having. Love to know more about how that was playing out in their everyday lives, many, many questions about it. But I do feel that my... I feel my father was not ashamed of his role, I think he felt it was his duty as a citizen, his participation in the war effort, and he did it as well as he could with Ralph. It was their assignment and they did what they had to do, so to speak.

KL: I kind of wondered, too, and I don't know, I know you were really young when your parents had this involvement and maybe not even born, but you mentioned a lot of names that are really significant to the Owens Valley and to Manzanar, and I wondered, kind of the same question Rose had for your dad, of what kind of a man is he, if you could give like a one sentence, just kind of response -- or longer if you know more -- but to some of those people. And I have a list, but let's actually start with Ralph Merritt.

SP: Ralph, I remember Ralph. I spent time with Ralph as a teenager at his home visiting and having long, sort of, intellectual conversations about politics and history and probably talked about Manzanar, but I don't remember the details of that. And I remember him being a very kind of slow-spoken, mellow person. I just remember liking him a lot. He was physically not very handsome anymore, he had these huge ears, big ears, but he was... you know, he was interested in the world and interested in what was going on. Interested in my participation in going to Germany at that time. I remember I wrote a letter to the editor about the Berlin situation while I was living there, and it was published in the L.A. Times, and he saw it. And he sent a copy of it to my father and said, with some comment like, "See what becomes of our babes?" or something like that, you know. So he was proud of my interest, I guess. I would say Ralph was a kind person. Again, shared many of these same values that my father did, I think. Humane, humanitarian, a definite humanitarian.

KL: Roy Taneko and Ned Campbell are the other names from Manzanar that came to mind.

SP: Yeah, I never knew either of them, I just know that my father liked them a lot, that's all I really know.

KL: Did you have something you wanted go with Ralph Merritt?

RM: No, I was just going to say Takeno.

KL: Takeno, sorry. Thank you. And then from Inyo Mono Association, Father Crowley, what do you recall of your parents' commentary about him?

SP: Well, yeah, they adored him. I think they were often involved in social activities with him, parties that were held. I guess he was a real character. And I'm so sorry I never knew him. And my mother would tell stories.

KL: Do you remember any of them?

SP: Well, she talked about how he had a circuit that he would go every Sunday, drive to several different churches around the Owens Valley area to give mass. And that was when he was killed doing that. I guess he hit a cow or something, and it was very, very upsetting to everybody when he died. They would go camping maybe with him. Fireside evenings, and I think he would sing, perhaps. I forget what all the stories are, but he was... and, of course, they thought it was wonderful that he was a Catholic priest and would drink with them, party with them. I guess he was just among this whole group of men who at that time were very devoted to, both the preservation and promotion of Owens Valley as a center of recreation and sports, skiing, the beginning of skiing and hunting and fishing.

KL: Norman Clyde?

SP: Again, I don't know any stories about him, I just know they talked about him.

RM: I just wanted to ask about a person that had come up in his diaries was a woman named Dorothy Kragen, had you ever heard her name?

SP: No, I don't know her. Lucy Adams I ran across yesterday, that was a name that was mentioned.

RM: Did you ever meet her?

SP: No.

KL: Did you have a sense of, like, Norman Clyde's personality or interest?

SP: I'm sorry, I don't.

KL: George Savage?

SP: Again, I think I might have met him once, but I don't really have any impressions of him. I know my father kept up with him for a long time because of their mutual interest in journalism, and it may have been that he was, might have been some job possibilities through him or something, but I don't think anything ever materialized.

KL: What about Dave McCoy? You said he had kind of a crazy scheme. What was your summation of his personality or his relationship with your folks or others?

SP: I never remember meeting him. I think they went skiing with him in the Mammoth area sometimes when he was first putting all that together. He was probably part of the group that got together socially in Bishop at that time. I have photographs of some of these parties, and a bunch of them playing instruments like a little band group in the house and singing and stuff. I think they had a lot of fun together, these people.

KL: They would just party in each other's homes?

SP: I think so, yeah.

KL: Were your parents or your family part of a religious community in your life?

SP: No.

<End Segment 13> - Copyright © 2013 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 14>

KL: How did the project, the writing project with Art Hansen get started? Do you have any awareness of...

SP: Well, I have the impression that Art as a scholar decided he'd take that on and track down the people who were administrators of the project and found my dad. I think by then Ralph had died probably.

KL: You said your dad was really into it, and I wondered if you remembered specific conversations you had with him, what was exciting and what anecdotes kind of came to mind and what he was thinking about that project?

SP: I wish I could remember in more detail, I don't. I just sort of have a general impression. And he was... over a period of time when I would see him, he would talk about it, the project. We were very happy to be part of finally getting all this recorded before everybody was gone and doing his best to try to track down facts like contacting Roy and contacting some other people, too, because he couldn't remember everything, being sorry he couldn't remember everything.

KL: What do you think was his motivation for being so passionate about recording it? This may be a little bit redundant.

SP: Well, I think he felt it was an important chapter in American history. It was like a footnote as history goes, really, in many ways, but it was a significant part of the Second World War, and certainly a sad chapter and violation of human rights in American history, and I think he had a sense of that. He wanted to have it, do what he could to make sure it was recorded accurately and fully so that people would know what went on. He having been part of, central to making it happen, was wanting to do what he could to make sure it was recorded before he passed away.

KL: What were his tasks when he worked for UNRRA, do you know the specifics of what his job description was?

SP: I honestly don't know. I assume that he was an administrator, making arrangements for things, contacting people and trying to figure out the logistics of organizational tasks that had to be done to help the refugees.

KL: Would you spell out the acronym?

SP: UNRRA?

KL: Uh-huh.

SP: United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration, something like that?

KL: You mentioned that there was a historic site at Lees Ferry that he was really interested in. Would you describe that, what it looked like, where it was, what it was used for?

SP: Gosh, I should remember better than I do. It was a historic old ranch... I'd have to have somebody help me recall even what the role of Lees Ferry was historically. Was it the crossing, one of the crossing places for when the Mormons came across?

KL: The Jones and Powell trip set out from there.

SP: Oh, it did?

KL: It was in a lot of Ed Abbey books, which is the park ranger's fascination with it, probably.

SP: Okay, yes, now that you're mentioning the Park Service, yes, he was, somehow he got involved, I don't think he purchased this land by himself, I think it was in partnership with some other people from, friends from the Caterpillar dealership perhaps, and colleagues, and they had acquired this land and they, I think they wanted to have the Park Service purchase it from them, or the Park Service wanted to purchase it. And I'm not sure what finally happened, but I do remember going up there and spending the night once, it was a beautiful, beautiful location.

KL: It's a research project.

SP: Yeah, that is a research project, that's true.

KL: I guess the same question just as far as the description, the personality, what values and interests of your father's second wife, Charlotte Hayhurst.

SP: Charlotte was a very nice person and she was... she was a good companion to my father because she doted on him, and he liked that. Something my mother was not willing to do even though she loved him dearly. And she was, she liked, she tried to do, she wanted to do fishing with my dad and they did go fishing together, especially when they lived up in Washington state. She had, she was a reader, she was interested in politics and talking about serious subjects with my dad, but I think not to the extent my mother probably did. But she was, I would say she was not... she was a very nice person, but she was not as interesting a person as my father was.

RM: I was wondering if you would be willing to give a description of your mother. She sounded like a very interesting person, and you obviously spent a great deal of your life with her. And I asked you about your father, but I didn't ask about your mom, and I was curious if you could tell us about the same sort of question, what kind of person she was, from a daughter's perspective.

SP: My mother was a person who suffered from mental illness I think, looking back now. Didn't recognize it at the time, but she struggled with lots of personal problems throughout her life that made it difficult to live with her. But she was also a very intellectually curious person and an adventuring person the way my father was. I think they had a lot of fun together for many years before they came to blows. And my mother did a great deal to make sure that I had opportunities as a child to travel, to have piano lessons, to have horseback riding lessons, to go to Girl Scout camp, to explore my talents, even though it was often very hard for her financially to do that, and emotionally even to pull it off. And I attribute my own sense of adventure in being out there, I've done a lot of traveling in my life and I attribute my interest in doing that, my ability to get out there and go to my mother's, the way she brought me up. And I'm grateful to her for... I've known other people whose mental illness have brought them down and caused them to collapse and not be able to go on with life in a fruitful way, and she managed to keep going. And I really hand it to her that she did do that against some hard odds, and showed me the way. It was great. She had a wonderful sense of humor, she was remembered for practical jokes and doing crazy things that made a lot people laugh. So I have lot of good memories.

KL: Would you bring us up to speed on the rest of your brother's life after your time in the Owens Valley? What he was like, what he did for a career?

SP: My brother graduated from college at the University of Washington, he wound up spending a lot more time with my father, which was very hard on my mother. And he became an entrepreneur, basically. He started a restaurant called Bob's Landing that he ran in Seattle. He became a sailor, he was quite active in that for a long time, really all his life in many ways. He got into all kinds of, sort of, development deals, many of which did not succeed well. But he managed to parlay things enough so that he lived a pretty first-class life most of his time. He and my mother shared an interest in having a lot of money, and my father and I shared an interest in not caring about having a lot of money. And the irony was that my father wound up with the most money by working for the Caterpillar company.

And my brother married and had two daughters, one of whom I'm very close to. Divorced his first wife who did not fare well, and married another woman who he was married to until he died, so he was married to her for probably at least twenty-five years. And she had money which he utilized. And they had the adventure of buying a yacht and sailing, they set out to sail around the world, but they never got... the furthest they got was New Zealand where they stopped and bought property and lived for maybe five years, and he tried to start a vegetable growing business using Dutch techniques in northern New Zealand, which I gather finally went into bankruptcy because he, suddenly that was all over and he returned to the States. So he had a sort of checkered career. But one of the things he did was to build a place called Villa Valencia, which is near Laguna Hills in that area, which is a place where they provide, it's a place for elderly people where they have assisted living. I don't think they have nursing home care, but they have independent apartments, think assisted living. That was one of his successes, and it's still going down there. His widow lives in Tucson, which is where he died. When they left New Zealand, they went to Hawaii for a while and then they wound up in Tucson.

RM: I can't remember if you said his name at the beginning of the interview.

SP: Okay, it's Robert. Robert L. Brown, Jr.

RM: And when was he born?

SP: He was born March 15, 1933.

RM: That's it for me, thank you.

SP: Okay, well, thank you guys. It's amazing that you're interested in all this, but those are some of our stories.

RM: I'm so glad you walked in yesterday. Thank you so much on behalf of me and Kristen and Alisa and Manzanar National Historic Site for doing this interview with us.

SP: Well, very happy to have done it. Thank you.

<End Segment 14> - Copyright © 2013 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 15>

KL: Okay, we're back for just a postscript.

SP: Okay, the postscript. I wanted to tell about how my dad was a photographer. He was very interested in taking pictures, and took wonderful pictures, many of which I have. And he was a friend of Ansel Adams, he was very proud of the fact that he was a friend of Ansel Adams. He met him in the 1930s in Yosemite when he and my mother would go in the summertime to work at Camp Curry summer jobs. This must have been when my dad was a schoolteacher. And they met Ansel and they used to pal around together, and I think Ansel taught my father quite a bit about how to take pictures. And I've always felt that the reason Ansel Adams came to Manzanar to take all the picture that he did for his book Free and Equal was because of his connection to my dad, but I don't know for sure.

And I've always been envious of how these people, these men I look back at as being sort of larger than life, all lived together in this area in the '30s and '40s. What a wonderful time it must have been for them to be doing the work they did together. My dad was part of, helped start the Inyo Mono Association which was kind of like the Chamber of Commerce in order to promote Owens Valley as a center for recreation, is the way I think they saw the economy of this area to be developed. And for everyone's benefit, having recreation with hunting and fishing, the nascent skiing industry with Dave McCoy having an interest in putting up a t-bar rope tow.

KL: Were you in the association's office, do you remember?

SP: Once I was in the association's office and I remember the photographs, some photographs that my dad had taken. And one in particular which was a picture of him fishing, fly fishing, in the Owens River in a very scenic place. And I wondered what became of these pictures that just showed the wonderful beauty of this part of the world.

KL: Where was that office located?

SP: It was on Main Street in Bishop, I don't know exactly where.

KL: Do you remember which side or what it was near?

SP: No, I think it was on the, it would be the east side, and I remember there was dark wood paneling in the room that the pictures were mounted on, up high. Great big pictures.

KL: Were your folks in the Sierra Club?

SP: I don't know if they were. I know they knew Dave Brower, though. Dave Brower's name came up a lot.

KL: In what sense?

SP: Just in conversation about... I'm sure they were big promoters of all the things that were going on to protect the environment.

KL: Do you have a feel for what their relationship with Brower was or what they thought of him?

SP: I'm sorry, I really don't. Yeah, I don't. I just know that it was a name that was mentioned in conversation.

KL: Like in the '30s?

SP: In conversation. Can't tell you any more, I'm sorry.

RM: Do you mind if I add one more postscript question?

SP: Fine.

RM: Do you know what your father's relationship was to the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power? I know that the Inyo Mono Association was very involved with them, and I was wondering if you ever heard about that.

SP: Well, I don't remember ever talking to my father about it, but my mother would tell stories about the battle that Owens Valley had with the Department of Water and Power. And from her point of view, what a terrible thing it was, how they came up and stole all the water and so forth. She would tell stories about that. But it's a double edged sword. Sometimes I think it was the best thing that ever happened, because if they hadn't taken all the water, this area would have been developed far more than it is now, and it wouldn't be as beautiful anymore as it is today. But I know that it's... they lived through that, but they didn't live through actual happenings because they came later, but they lived through the results of it and I know it was always a topic of conversation.

AL: I apologize if you already answered this, but when was the last time that your father saw Manzanar? Was he aware of, like, pilgrimages and the growing consciousness, or did you guys already talk about that? His perspective as people... you know, the first public pilgrimage is in 1969, people started coming back, talking about this history, about this site. Do you know if he ever visited or expressed any opinions about the movement to preserve Manzanar?

SP: Well, I'm sure he would have been interested in doing that. He died in (1976), so I had the impression that when he was working with Art Hansen, it was just kind of a topic that was barely, they were just beginning to talk about it. So I can't help but think he would have been really pleased to see that this Historic Site was created and would have loved participating and doing that, providing more information. I'm sure he would have.

AL: Do you know when he last saw it?

SP: Oh, as far as I know, he never came here again after we left in 1946. But he might have come, I didn't know that much about what his life, all the parts of his life for several years. But he was living in Washington state, and I don't think he came to California very much at all after the early 1950s. He was in Washington state and then in Arizona.

AL: I thought he was in Leisure World --

SP: Oh, you're right, yes, of course.

AL: Yeah, I thought he was somewhere in this...

SP: Yes, you're right. When he moved to Leisure World, as far as I know, he never came up here. But he might have and I just didn't know about it.

<End Segment 15> - Copyright © 2013 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.