<Begin Segment 17>

RP: What was your, did, how was the being pregnant there and delivering two children there? What was that like, the medical care?

MS: Well, by the time, see, I was six months pregnant, so by that time it's a lot better. They finally set up, looked like a hospital. But the first baby that was born, she had it in a barrack, and so everybody was peekin' in the windows watching the delivery. [Laughs] I heard about that. I said oh, no. But luckily one of the doctors had volunteered, I knew him when he was in medical school, so he was there, volunteered, so he, and he happened to be a gynecologist, luckily, so he took care of me. He came to the barrack, he gave me special attention, so I was fortunate. But by that time they had a, like a sort of hospital, better than it was at first, but it, everything was very primitive that first few months. But at the end things were pretty good. Some people liked it there 'cause they adjusted themselves, and so it was very difficult for them to leave because they didn't have anywhere to go. A lot of 'em went back East, if they had friends or something, but they all wanted to come back to California. Most of 'em didn't have places to come back to. Some of 'em, I know, bought back, they sold the property and bought it back, but I know a relative bought it back and he had to pay more than, had to pay a lot of money to buy the property back from people, but if you could afford to do that that was okay. But it was very difficult for some of the families. It was hard to get work, too.

RP: You lived in Block 21?

MS: I think, no, I was in Block 5, I think. Block 21 was, I was in Block 5. 21, I think that's where most of the volunteer people were. We were next group to go in, so by that time, I think we were Block 5, I think. Seemed like. I can't remember.

RP: You were in Poston I.

MS: I've got it written down someplace. It's over in my house. I have all my pictures and all, most of it over at the house.

RP: Did your husband's parents work in the camp that you can recall?

MS: No, they were old, so they were... well, they were in their sixties, I think, but they never, neither one of 'em worked.

RP: Do you know if your husband was allowed to pick the people that he wanted to work on the police force?

MS: He what?

RP: Do you know if your husband was allowed to choose the men that --

MS: No, they all volunteered.

RP: They all volunteered.

MS: Yeah. Yeah, so I imagine he had thirty or forty people working.

<End Segment 17> - Copyright © 2009 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.