<Begin Segment 15>

RP: You graduated what in '43 or '44?

MI: '43 I think.

RP: The first, the first class.

MI: I think the second one. It was '44 then, huh. '43 or '44? One of those classes. Winter, because wasn't there a winter and a summer one? 'Cause if anything it would have been a summer one.

RP: I think there was just one.

MI: One?

RP: Yeah. Summer of '43 and then...

MI: Then maybe it was '43 then. Wait a minute. Yeah, I bet you it's about '43.

RP: Who, you talked about Dave Bromley. Who were some of the other administrators that you had contact with on a regular basis? Were there other folks that you mingled with, you know, in the business of the day? You mentioned Merritt.

MI: Yeah. Well, no, I did not mingle with Mr. Merritt. I hardly ever saw him. But Barbara Dougherty, I think was his secretary, but not on an administrative basis. She was the advisor to this group of young girls that I belonged to, the P.S.K.s, the phi, we called it the phi sigma kappa, KP... 'course some of the guys call say, "P.S.K., oh, the pretty sad cases," you know. 'Cause we used to put such crazy parties together. But Barbara was our advisor and she kept in touch with us 'til not too long ago, several years ago. Yeah, I'm pretty sure she's quite elderly now. In fact, it was funny 'cause I was, I just saw a letter that she had written to me saying that she wanted me to have this book. And I thought, "Oh God, that's right, I ought to get in touch with her." 'Course she's... but anyway, yeah, even after the war she went to Japan from Manzanar to work at the headquarters, MacArthur's headquarters. And she came, then she came back, lived in L.A. and she came to several of our functions. And she comes to Maryknoll once in a while, or she did. But I'm pretty sure she's pretty old by now. Yeah.

RP: And...

MI: But she was very dedicated to us.

RP: She really looked over, looked over the group.

MI: Yeah, she always, always kept in touch, kept track of who's who and how's everybody doing. You know, really...

RP: And this, this P.S.C....

MI: P.S.K.

RP: P.S.K. group, sounds like you continued as a group after camp for quite a while. Do you still meet?

MI: We did. I have a picture of them, but you know what? I think there is only three of us surviving now. In fact, there's a picture in the album of our group. But then we had added some other members after that, too.

RP: You said you had some wild parties?

MI: Well, you know, it sounds wild at the time but it's probably pretty mild. You know, in order to drum up something very interesting we would say, "Well, we're gonna have a poor man's party." So what's a poor man's party? Well we were gonna only serve crackers and water. Well, that was only a front. That was one party. But we were just a hilarious bunch of women, I mean, we could go to restaurants and we used to meet about every three or four months during the year and we would create such a riot just laughing, laughing. And everybody would want to join us, you know people we didn't know. It was so funny. There was another time when we said, "Yeah, let's reverse this role. Instead of wearing women's clothes, let's wear our brother's clothes." Oh, my mother did not like that idea and I said, "Yeah, but I'll be the only one that won't go to the party then." So I wore my brother's clothes. And of course we took it off after that. So they thought that we were... that's where the, one of the members, a family, said, "Gol, P.S.K, pretty sad cases." [Laughs] So what it basically boils down to is, if there's no fun in the camp, you make your own fun. And the best way to make fun is with your friends. No matter how crazy it is. Who cares?

RP: It's fun.

MI: Yeah, and then you... because of memory. I just, I think those memories are really precious.

RP: Especially those.

MI: I wouldn't do it today, but you know. [Laughs]

<End Segment 15> - Copyright © 2008 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.