<Begin Segment 21>

KP: So you said that your mother took up art in camp?

FH: She was always very artistic in her way. I think that's why she started a flower business and caught on right away. And she did a lot of embroidering in camp, sewing. She sewed a lot. Incidentally, she had this sewing machine that we had put away, wherever it was, sent up and she had it with her and my daughter has it now. It's a old treadle that... you know. And she did a lot of sewing and she was very creative, did a lot of embroidery. She, very good at crocheting, knitting, and she lived to be four days shy of a hundred and three, and her last award she was ninety-six and took the... San, it's called the San Diego fair. It used to be called the Del Mar fair, but the needlework prize there, the first prize, top prize, and they wanted her to send it to Sacramento to the state fair, but you had to take it up there and you have to keep an eye on it and then go up and get it or whatever, so we never put it into the San Diego fair, I mean state fair. Just the Del Mar fair.

RP: Do you still have a piece here in...

FH: I have a piece here that Mom did in... I think it was '70, no, '43 or '44, and she gave it to me -- no, she gave, she did it '42 or '43. Yeah. And she gave it to me on my wedding, which is '46. It's a panda bear embroidery work. She loved to do that.

RP: Did she, she took a class at Manzanar?

FH: Yes. I don't know who the teacher's name, what the teacher's name and where she went to do it, but she did do a lot of that. She did a lot of embroidery. Handkerchiefs, scarves, whatever. Things were limited there, so whatever material you could get she did it.

RP: Did your dad have a creative outlet at all, too, in camp?

FH: He liked to sing. He used -- I don't know if you've ever heard of the Shigin Club?

RP: Oh yeah.

FH: He belonged to the Shigin Club.

RP: In Manzanar?

FH: Uh-huh, and he used to go to it very religiously. And as a little kid, I remember he played the shakuhachi. Do you know what that is? Played that. He would play it for us when we were little kids.

RP: He didn't play in camp? Did he have it in camp?

FH: No, I don't think so. I don't think he took that up with us. He might've stored it. I don't think he took it up, because we could only take the bare necessities and that was not a necessity I guess. A matter of how you thought, how necessary it was.

RP: Can you talk a little about your other siblings in camp, a little bit, too?

FH: Yeah, I have a sister, that lives in Chula Vista.

RP: And she's how much younger than you?

FH: She's two years younger than I am.

RP: Okay. What did she do in camp? I mean, she went to school...

FH: She's talented like my mother. She does, she's a hairdresser. Right now she's doing a lot of crazy quilt. She likes that, and she's been doing that for years now. She's put 'em in the fairs, she's won first, a lot of first prizes and she does beautiful work. She had a nursery in Chula Vista, or... Chula Vista? Imperial Beach. And she opened a flower shop there. She lost her husband when she was quite young. I don't remember. It must be about, I think he passed away in '84, so it's been a while. And then I have a brother. My older of the two brothers, younger brother, lived in Fresno. He has passed on. He had two children. And his wife passed on before he did. And then I have a brother right here in Encinitas. He's my one and only brother, very dear to me.

RP: That's Jim?

FH: Jim. He has three daughters. And he's got one more grandson, grandchildren than I do. I have five grandsons only, and he's got six grandchildren, boys and girls. Mostly girls, but...

RP: Let's just talk a little bit about your, you got married in Cleveland, and did you come back to California shortly thereafter?

FH: We lived in Cleveland. We got married and lived in Cleveland three years, came to San Diego. He wanted to go back to fishing, came back to San Diego end of '48. I think it was Christmas, I mean New Years' Eve of '48, we came to San Diego. Stayed with Katz and his family and lived in San Diego ten years, and he fished. Fishing industry went down the tubes, too many imports coming in, so we came up here and we grew flowers up here for about twenty years and retired.

RP: Did you grow for another grower? Did you have your own...

FH: No, we grew and we sent it to an agent who shipped it out, and we did that for about twenty years, close to twenty years.

RP: And you grew mostly carnations?

FH: Mostly carnations, yeah. Oh, there were other little byproducts to help us make expense, but... sending kids to college you need to do something. [Laughs]

[Interruption]

<End Segment 21> - Copyright © 2009 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.