<Begin Segment 16>

RP: So you met your husband in camp.

FH: Yeah.

RP: Can you give us his name?

FH: His name is... he's got a lot of names. [Laughs] He was, his birth certificate says Yoshizo Hayashi. I think his mother wanted him to be Yoshimatsu Hayashi, but somewhere along the line the midwife recorded it wrong, but to the time that I remember everyone called him Yoshimatsu. But I met him as Jazzy, and he was always Jazzy to me. At first I wasn't too sure of him. He had, he had a good life so I wasn't too sure of him, but he turned out to be a good guy.

RP: You talked about nicknames, and the Terminal Island group had...

FH: Yeah, they all have nickname, every one of them. There was Snake, there was Horse, there was... well, Lefty. I had, my husband has a cousin named Tokyo. I don't know where he got his name. Elmer, he got a name Elmer. Let's see, Bunky, which my brother-in-law, Bunky. Everybody knew Bunky. I can't remember all.

RP: And then also Bunky's brother... Katsuo.

FH: His name was Katsuo, but he was Katz. Some people signed it K-A-T-Z, I mean, would write his name K-A-T-Z. I don't know, there was a bunch of 'em, but I can't remember all their names.

RP: Did the girls also use nicknames?

FH: No, not that I know of. Maybe they did, but I don't know of any. They more or less... but they were tough girls.

RP: The Terminal Island girls.

FH: Uh-huh. They were tough girls. But the Bainbridge girls were tougher. When I went, when we went into camp they said watch out for those Bainbridge girls. They were tough girls.

RP: So you stayed away from them?

FH: No, I mean, it's just a label they put on. Maybe they want to be known as tough and then, then... I mean, we became friends, good friends.

RP: Tell us about your husband's family. Originally they settled in Terminal --

FH: I think his mom and dad came to Terminal Island there... they must be one of the pioneers of the island. I don't know to what degree, what year or whatever they were, but I'm quite sure they were proud of Terminal Island, being pioneers of the island. And I'm sure there's a lot of them. Must've been a bunch of 'em. They were fishermen, they said, "Let's go to Terminal Island." I have no idea how they approached it, settled there and did what they did, but they, you had to be employed with a cannery or something on the island that was stationary there in order to live there, and if you didn't you had to leave the island. That was, I don't know if that was a cannery ruling or what kind of ruling it was, but that was the ruling.

RP: So was your soon-to-be husband a, was he a fisherman originally, on Terminal Island?

FH: Yeah. He had been a fisherman. I think he, they fished pretty young. I think he did sardine fishing in the beginning and later on tuna fishing. I think he went up to Monterey to become a tuna fisherman, and he was up in Monterey at the time the war broke out. So I don't know how he got back because they, you weren't able to travel from any parts of -- unless you were going back East. So I don't know how he got back, but he got back to Terminal Island and that's where they went to Manzanar.

RP: They were...

FH: Evacuated twice.

RP: They were evacuated twice, forty-eight hours.

FH: They had a little more hardship than we did. Lot more, I guess, because their time was limited as to dispose of their belongings and things. I know when I was at Marshall High, and our, I thought our school color was blue and blue, navy blue and light blue, and these guys are coming around with black and it had SP -- black and yellow -- and it had SP on it. I couldn't figure out what it was, 'til I found out that they had some relatives that they left their island to move in with their relative and they were coming to our school. And that was San Pedro High. Now at that time I didn't know 'til later on. I found out that was San Pedro High people. So I'm sure they had it rough.

RP: How did you meet your husband in camp?

FH: That's when I was working as a dietician. I was doing the dietician work and he was the driver for the trucks that unloaded the groceries, and that's how I met. That was right after I graduated high school. Yeah, right after I graduated high school.

KP: Do you remember how often the trucks came to unload groceries in the block?

FH: I don't remember, but we would have the meat, meat stuff truck and the... I don't know if the same truck did it, the same... but they had meat and vegetable. And we grew a lot of vegetable on our property -- I mean, up there in the back country or side country or wherever -- and I'm sure there were other trucks that hauled things in. I have no clue, but I don't even know if they were different crews or it was the same crew that went back and reloaded and came back. But there were thirty-one blocks, right?

RP: Thirty-six.

FH: Oh, thirty-six, yeah. Thirty-six blocks, and one block was hospital and one block was school, right?

RP: Right.

FH: Then we had the hospital that they had to furnish, deliver to, so I really don't know how many. I don't think there was a whole lot. They must've gone back and reloaded and... or maybe certain days were the days that they loaded whatever items that was supposed to be delivered.

RP: Your parents grew up in the, many Issei grew up in the era of these arranged marriages where there was a go-between and... did you have to seek permission from your parents? Or did you just meet and... was there any go-between involved?

FH: No. Yeah, we were just off and on dating, nothing... maybe he was serious, but I wasn't, and I don't think he was serious. No, I don't think he was. But anyhow, we had been going around for a while, and I think it was coming to the part where we were, he was gonna... see, I went to Chicago, and he went to Cleveland. He went to Cleveland first part of '45 and I went to Chicago, I think first part of March in '45. And it was coming to that point and he asked me to marry him, and I said, "I don't want to marry you. I don't even know you," I told him. I told him, "I don't even know you. I don't love you and I'm too young to get married. I just want to have some fun yet." So he left and I figured I'd never see him again, unless he writes to me or... you know. But he's way in Cleveland, I'm going to Chicago, which maybe now is just a matter of short distance, but then Chicago and Cleveland were miles apart. So I went to Chicago and my girlfriend that called me to come to Chicago, she said, "You know, we're staying here for a little while and," whenever it was, she said, "we're moving in an apartment house." I said, "Oh, great." There were nine, ten apartments and she said, "Our family's getting one, two, three, four, four apartments," because her family was big. Her mother and the brother and the sister that was married and blah, blah, blah, and I was gonna go there. Well, it so happened that my husband's --- husband, well, my boyfriend's -- sister lived in the same apartment house, so that's where it started, restarted. He came and... he came to visit his sister and his brother that was there, that happened to come by. So that's where it started. But there was never a arrangement thing, but he did go through the... because, I think, I turned him down the first time, he went to one of his friends and asked him to go to my parents for my hand. He did go through that because, I think because I turned him down the first time. I wasn't ready to go into that part of life yet. [Laughs]

RP: And where did you get married?

FH: Cleveland.

RP: In Cleveland.

FH: Cleveland. In '46.

RP: Did you date any other men in camp before Jazz?

FH: Oh, nothing serious. You know, dates, out to a movie or...

RP: The outdoor theater?

FH: I don't know. There weren't any out there.

RP: Oh, did you go to the... there was an outdoor theater at Manzanar?

FH: No, I don't think in Chicago there were any.

RP: Oh, not in Chicago? I was mentioning Manzanar.

FH: No, I think it, it... Manzanar, yeah. I had gone to outdoor theater with the guy I married, but no, it was all theaters back in Chicago.

<End Segment 16> - Copyright © 2009 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.