<Begin Segment 13>

AL: And what grade were you in at that time?

GW: This is what I was trying to remember. I was ten when I went in there, ten, so I got out when I was thirteen. So when I started in Long Beach, I started in the seventh grade. So I must have been in the fourth grade when I got in camp, either the fourth or fifth.

AL: Do you remember any of your teachers?

GW: That's it. I remember this one teacher who took a liking to me, wanted to take me out of camp, but I can't remember her name. And there was another teacher, let's see, it was in the fourth, fifth... the fifth grade. I think her name was Cramer. And I remember her mostly because when President Roosevelt died, they had a memorial service for him in the auditorium. And we, all the kids went in there, like in assemblies, and they had this memorial service for the President. And my brother Bill, this is that story where he sang the Lord's Prayer. And he had such a powerful voice that he didn't need a microphone to fill up that auditorium. After he sang, my teacher cried and cried. She grabbed me and asked me if that was my brother who sang. I said, "Yes," and she gave me a big hug. And when I think about it, here we were in camp, singing for President Roosevelt, the man who signed the declaration that put us in camp. And the irony of it all was this memorial service and my brother singing so well. I think that was the biggest moment that I remember of camp, was that service that we had for President Roosevelt.

AL: You know, it's mentioned in the Manzanar Free Press. I think I might have given you a copy of that, and it says that Bill sang a beautiful rendition of the Lord's Prayer.

GW: Bill was talented in that way, he could sing. He was very, very, he was a good singer. In fact, every year in Los Angeles they have what they call this Nisei Week, and they have the talent shows. Well, in 1939, he won that talent show. I think he sang Old Man River. But he has this real deep, baritone voice, and it could carry through the room with no microphone at all, very strong.

AL: Do you know if there's any recordings of his voice?

GW: I have I think a recording he made of the Lord's Prayer, Old Man River, and stuff like that. But it's on an old vinyl, I don't think it's any good anymore. But yeah, I do have that.

AL: I was just thinking it would be incredible, like if you have the Prayer, sometime on that anniversary of that memorial service, to play that in the auditorium again, I think would be very powerful. And I've seen the pictures from that memorial service, and Reverend Nagatomi's speech and Merritt's speech. And there's certainly, even in Tule Lake, of all places where you'd think Roosevelt would not have had quite so many fans, they had a very elaborate memorial service for him. Just stepping aside for a second, you were talking about President Roosevelt, what responsibility do you think he bears compared to, some people say it was the army pushing it, he just signed it. From your personal perspective, what do you think of him?

GW: I think he had to do what he had to do, and he was very courageous in that respect. And the background of it all is that, yes, he was influenced, or Congress is influenced by outside forces, all these people in California, especially the people with money like the farmers and all that. Because it turned out that's what happened is that they came in and grabbed the land for pennies that today are worth millions a dollar, property-wise and all that. That's what he had to do. But I don't think we, Japanese Americans as a whole, hate Roosevelt because he did that. He's just one of the people involved, and the fact that that happened. And this is why we talk about not, this thing should not happen again maybe for the Muslims or the Arabs or whatever, or Chinese if they ever have war again, that this is something that I don't think will ever happen again. It shouldn't.

AL: So just going back into talking about camp a little bit, didn't Bill start the Jive Bombers?

GW: Yep, he was a trumpeter. He played the trumpet... he played quite a few instruments, but he played the trumpet, sang a lot, but his type of singing was classical. In fact, he trained... when he worked for Seabrook, he became a, what do you call it, a refrigeration engineer, and he set up all the freezing companies or factories for Bird's Eye and all those companies back east, and they sent him to Europe, to Italy, to set up plants for freezing. And when he was in Italy, he was, he took some singing lessons from these operas, these maestros that teach you how to sing and all that. So when he came back, he was better. He had what they call training. I don't know if you remembered this church that Reverend Schuler has at the glass cathedral?

AL: Crystal Cathedral?

GW: Yeah, Crystal Cathedral. Well, he signed a contract to sing with the choir. And every once in a while, they televise it every Sunday, and if you watch, every once in a while they'll focus on Bill's picture when they're singing because I think he became their lead baritone singer. And you couldn't miss him because he had white hair. [Laughs]

AL: And I think, wasn't one of your sisters in the country western band the Sierra Stars?

GW: Lillian.

AL: Lillian?

GW: Lillian sang. She's the one that was so close to Frizzell. It was Frizzell, the teacher that was in the movie also, but he taught music at Manzanar. So Lillian became close to Louis Frizzell, so she was in that western singers. They got some pictures of her in that Japanese museum in L.A.

AL: Were any other members of your family musical? I mean, was music an important part of your family?

GW: Not really, it's just Bill and Lillian seemed to stand out the most because nobody else went into that profession.

AL: And Lillian was, was she in high school?

GW: She was in high school.

<End Segment 13> - Copyright © 2014 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.