<Begin Segment 24>

RP: So your trip back to Florin with the cat, how did you feel about leaving camp? You had spent three and a half years of your life there, and you had worked in the administration area. You made some friends and befriended a few cats. How did it feel to be leaving this place?

CH: Well, since everybody else was leaving, I felt that it's...

RP: Time to go.

CH: Time to go. Can close that chapter in my life. Yeah, everybody was leaving. Just, there was no one. My best friend left for the L.A. area. And some of my friends left early to go to Washington, D.C. to work for the government. And they're still around.

RP: You got back to Florin, you settled into the hostel?

CH: Yes.

RP: Now, was that the one at the Methodist church?

CH: Yes.

RP: Can you describe how they had set it up?

CH: Well, we had so much space to hang curtains, I mean, sheets and bedspreads and things. And that's where we stayed for... I know it was grape season, wine picking. We did some wine picking, I remember that. Then shortly after that, I don't know. My father asked me to write a letter to Mr. Divinny of Capitola, California. He has a huge Tokay grape field in that part of the country. I wrote to him asking him whether they needed a foreman for the ranch. He was very nice and said, "Yes." Prior to that, before the war, my uncle George worked on that farm, lived in that same house that we were going to live in. So it was quite a, you know, there was some...

RP: Connection.

CH: Yeah.

RP: How long did you spend there?

CH: Oh, let me see. My parents, they must have stayed there ten to fifteen years off the bat. Then they moved to... what's the next place? Bradshaw Road down there. It's part of Sacramento now. Yes.

RP: Your sister didn't go to the hostel, did she?

CH: No, she was still in Los Angeles.

RP: So she had left camp and gone to Los Angeles?

CH: Uh-huh.

RP: Oh, that's right, she was a housegirl?

CH: Yeah, housekeeper, they called it. They just kept, the family just kept me, I don't know. They must have had some motive, I don't know.

RP: Yeah, people were split.

CH: Yeah.

RP: Did you, did you stay in Acampo for a while with your parents?

CH: Yes. I stayed there... let's see. I guess about a year, year or two. They days get mixed up, the dates, yeah.

RP: Then after that you went to...

CH: Sewing school. And my mother insisted I go to a sewing school in Los Angeles, because there's a teacher, was in Manzanar also. So she wrote a letter to her saying, "I'm going to send my daughter to your school." [Laughs] So...

RP: Was that something that you had an interest in doing as well, or was it just something your mom thought you should do?

CH: My mother, for one, I thought, well, I took a home economics in high school, but I really didn't like it. But she figured that -- oh, my sister did go to a sewing school in Sacramento before. And she figured that I should have the same type of upbringing, too.

RP: Traditional roles.

CH: Yeah. And that's where I graduated, and I have that picture in there. And let's see...

RP: Where did you live while you were going to sewing school?

CH: Oh, I lived at a Mr. and Mrs. Lawson of Los Angeles. It was on Country Club Drive. If you know Los Angeles, it's between Western and... Western and what is the other street? Off of Pico Boulevard.

RP: It sounds like they were well-to-do?

CH: Oh, yeah, real estate. [Laughs]

RP: And what did you do while you were there?

CH: Well, I was a schoolgirl, so I helped with the dishes, and sometimes I helped with the dinner, cooking. And other times I had to do the cleaning and that kind of stuff. And once in a while, I think I did some laundry, too, yeah.

RP: Did you feel a closeness to them?

CH: Oh, yeah. They were very kind, too. I had so many offers to do that kind of work, to stay there, I could only choose one. And I chose the one that was closest to the school, which was on San Pedro, way downtown, you know.

RP: Near Little Tokyo?

CH: Yeah. It's all, it was next to that church, Union Church down there. And so...

RP: We're... the class, was it a class that you attended with other students?

CH: Oh, yes.

RP: And what was the makeup of that class? Were there other Japanese Americans?

CH: They were all, they were all Japanese American except there was one lady, I think she was from Japan, but had been living here many years. Just like the teacher. Probably lived in this country more than Japan.

RP: Did you return to Florin after your...

CH: Well, let's see. I graduated and then the Lawsons bought a new place out in Flintridge, which is near La Canada, California. Big estate with a running brook and everything. [Laughs] They wanted me to stay, but I declined to stay. They wanted me to drive their car and everything, oh, my gosh. Because, you know, it was sort of out of the way. She couldn't get anyplace without a car. And I did need to -- oh, I forgot to tell you. While we were in camp, we were issued driver's licenses. We don't even have a car. We don't have anything to drive, but we were able to maneuver some of that, kind of. And we offered licenses to the Isseis, yeah, in camp. Because they, they probably had expirations and everything. So that's one good thing the government did for us. [Laughs] Yeah.

RP: Did you leave camp on a bus? Oh, you said you went to the train station. You ended up at, after sewing school...

CH: I went back to Acampo. And... yeah, that's it.

<End Segment 24> - Copyright © 2008 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.