Densho Digital Archive
Manzanar National Historic Site Collection
Title: Martha Shoaf
Narrator: Martha Shoaf
Interviewer: John Allen
Location:
Date: November 7, 2002
Densho ID: denshovh-smartha-01-0008

<Begin Segment 8>

JA: Tell me what, how you left camp and where you went and what you did. Under what circumstances, at what point in time did you leave?

MS: Well, the war was growing to an end, and I figured, well, maybe I should start looking abroad and see something. And one day I was out hitchhiking -- I hate to tell you this story. [Laughs] I was out hitchhiking, and the superintendent of schools from Trona came by and picked me up. And the next thing I knew, I had signed a contract to teach school in Trona. I didn't mean to, but that's what happened.

JA: Where is Trona relative to Manzanar?

MS: Trona is about, Trona's about a hundred miles from Manzanar, maybe a little more. And it's out in the Mojave Desert, and on the edge of Death Valley, basically. And it's on a dry lake, it's a chemical town.

JA: And you're still up in that area.

MS: And I'm still there, although I have taught school around the world, sort of, and I've taught a lot in Europe and in the Orient as well.

JA: And it sounds like you, from time to time, run into people you knew at Manzanar.

MS: Occasionally I do, and then some of my best friends taught there, also, which makes it nice. And of course, my sister was there, too, but for a very short period of time. She was just there for about three months.

<End Segment 8> - Copyright © 2002 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.