<Begin Segment 13>

AL: Did you keep up with news from Bainbridge Island? Did you guys subscribe to the Review?

SK: Yes. And one of the, one of the neat things was that Walt Woodward, who was the editor of the newspaper on the island, he kept in touch with us. And he had Paul Ohtaki be his correspondent. And so Paul would send all of this, all the weddings, deaths, etcetera, births, to Walt. And so Walt would have a special column just for that and, and so we always, a lot of us got the newspaper and that's how we kept in touch with the people on Bainbridge Island. And I think that's what made it so easy for us to go back to Bainbridge.

AL: Did you correspond with people on the island besides the newspaper?

SK: For me, I was a kid, so I corresponded with one or two kids. And one of 'em was, one of 'em was a daughter of the owner of the drugstore, the one and only drugstore on the island. And so we used to correspond, yes.

AL: Did they send you Christmas presents or packages or anything...

SK: No, we just sent letters back and forth between the two of us. The people who stored our things for us when we left for Manzanar, they were an older couple and they, and they owned the farm that we, my dad, had strawberries on. And so they, they, when we were told that we can have certain things, you know, Mr. and Mrs. Hyde would send us some of our things. And one thing they did send was my box, the box camera, the family box camera. Wellm by that time I think most of my brothers and sisters were out of camp. They had moved to Chicago. And of course I had this camera. No one else had a camera. So I had more fun with the camera. And so that's why the picture I have is from that box camera of mine.

AL: And you mentioned early on about, after your, your farm, I mean, that, I guess it was Filipinos that took over your farm?

SK: [Nods]

AL: So the Hydes kept your possessions?

SK: Yes.

AL: And then, so what happened to the farm?

SK: The farm was, the farm was still there and it wasn't sold or anything. They did take care of it and I don't know how well they did but they did, they kept the farm for us. And they, I'm not quite sure whether they farmed it themselves or they leased it out or what. I don't, I don't...

AL: Was this the Filipino family? Or the Hyde family?

SK: Yeah, the Filipino.

AL: Do you remember their names?

SK: No, I don't.

AL: Did you always know that were gonna go back to the island?

SK: I didn't know whether we would or not. I just know that when we were in Chicago we were, you know, we found out that we could go back. And my dad was very determined to go back to Bainbridge.

<End Segment 13> - Copyright © 2008 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.