<Begin Segment 14>

RP: You also worked as a dietician, or a dietician's aide for Mrs. Wakamatsu.

FH: Wakatsuki.

RP: Oh, Wakatsuki.

FH: Yeah, Wakatsuki.

RP: Tell us what you did for her.

FH: What I did for her? I just had this little place... see, the adults ate food three times a meal, three times a day, three meals, and the infants had two times, which was ten o'clock and two o'clock. And you fixed meal for them, beside I made a formula for them for if they weren't nursing them. And that is what I did. It was, it was a job.

RP: That was... so you worked specifically in Block 17, or did you work in other blocks?

FH: Uh-huh. And later on I went down to, I don't know if it was at 20 or 21, somewhere down there, and then I left camp and went cannery working. They were recruiting cannery workers for tomato cannery, so I signed up for that, went there, and I think I was there six or eight weeks or something like that. In Utah.

RP: Was there enough, was there ever shortages of formula?

FH: No, never.

RP: You always had enough.

FH: No, never. There might have been that time when we had that storm and the trucks couldn't get in, but I think we were, we had ample supply.

RP: Did you get to know any of the other Wakatsukis?

FH: Lillian was in my acapella choir class. She was a singer.

RP: How about Bill? He was also a singer.

FH: He was a beautiful, he had a beautiful voice. Tenor. No, I didn't know him, but we did go hear him sing wherever he sang, if he sang, and if I'm not mistaken he went back East somewhere and I want to say it was in Cleveland, but, no, I think that was Hank Nagano, or Nakano. It was another tenor singer. Do you... right? Okay, it might've been him. You know quite a bit of the camp.

RP: Did you meet Jeannie?

FH: Beg your pardon?

RP: Did you ever meet Jeannie, one of the daughters?

FH: No, I never... no. I understand she just lost her husband. I think she's much younger than I am. I say much younger. When you get older they're not that much younger, but when you're a teenager twelve years is pretty much younger. I don't know how old she is.

RP: You probably don't envision her writing a novel about her experiences and becoming one of the most important books about the camp experience. How was Jeannie's mom, Mrs. Wakatsuki?

FH: Very jovial. Very nice woman. Easy to work with... she was a good woman. And I think she was Nisei. Yeah, I think she was Nisei, so it was easy to converse English with her, and... she was a little round lady and she'd carry her little book and walk down the street. You could see, I could vision her walking down, down, between blocks. Nice lady, very nice lady. I don't think they came any better. Very good lady. I'm... I can't say, but I think I worked for 'em about a year, about a year.

RP: You get any feeling from the mothers who bring their babies in, in terms of how the experience was, or how difficult is was for them to be raising kids in, in that camp?

FH: I don't know of any.

RP: Any complaints or grumblings, things weren't quite right?

FH: No. I can't remember.

RP: Did you ever have to use the medical facilities at, in the camp?

FH: Other than my allergy, no, I don't think so.

<End Segment 14> - Copyright © 2009 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.