<Begin Segment 21>

RM: I had a question about what it was like when the school was closing down.

MS: I don't remember.

RM: Do you know when that happened?

MS: Well, it closed in '45 and it was gradual, so the classes were less and less. But I don't remember much about the closing, to tell you the truth. It's strange.

RM: How did your job change?

MS: Well, I didn't have classes anymore, and it was very easy living. I'd help out in the office with little things like here and there. I think the school closed the last, would have been in June of '45. And so from June, I was there until the following March, and to tell you the truth, I don't know what did in that time. We were working with records and this and that, but it doesn't stand out in my mind. But I was there until, I think my release was in February or March.

RM: I'm just going to try to grab a paper out of your donation, oh, here it is. You said you started working as a clerk for the Office of Acquisitions.

MS: Yeah. So whatever I did was filling out papers or this or that. But it was a very easy job. And see, originally, they had the dormitories. They got the... originally we were in the barracks, okay, and then they had the dormitories. So I did move back from Independence. When the schools closed, then I moved in, I had an apartment like in one of the... well, I guess before the schools closed I moved back from Independence to camp, and I had a room in one of the dormitories.

RM: What was that room like?

MS: It was nice. It was a room, just a bedroom, and we had showers and toilets and so forth down at the end of the hall. And I remember Lucille had an apartment next to... it wasn't an apartment, it was a room, dormitory, she had the room next to mine. And I remember one time it was very, very cold, and we had no hot water, and I was just going to show the girls that I was still going to take a shower, so I got in and it was cold, we had no heat, no hot water. I got in, by golly, and I took a shower, a cold shower. Isn't that stupid? I sometimes think about that when I get in the shower and I think, "Oh, dear." [Laughs]

RM: You were a rugged pioneer, a little bit.

MS: Yeah, I was a rugged gal. And I never was a rugged person.

RM: And that was in those, in the building in the end.

MS: The dormitory, yeah.

RM: The dormitories, wow. So were you there on, do you remember the last day that Manzanar had Japanese Americans in it?

MS: I don't.

RM: Do you have memories of families leaving in those last couple of months?

MS: I really don't.

RM: What about after, so camp is shut down, no Japanese Americans are there anymore. You said you were doing paperwork, do you remember what the camp was like? It would have been empty.

MS: It was empty... I don't remember much about that. The dormitories were here, I would have been in the office, so the camp was sort of empty. I don't recollect much of that.

RM: Were you still there when they started selling buildings?

MS: No. No, I left in February, March?

RM: Of 1946?

MS: Uh-huh. I don't remember about their selling anything.

<End Segment 21> - Copyright © 2015 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.