Densho Digital Archive - Helen Mori Interview (denshovh-mhelen

<Begin Segment 11>

RP: What are some of your vivid memories of what you did as a kid at Manzanar?

HM: What I did as a kid?

RP: Yeah, what did you... did you get into some trouble? Did you, what did you do for play, fun?

HM: For play, for play I remember we played jacks. We played marbles. What else? Oh, paper dolls. You know these cereal and stuff now they have the slot and you stick a tab in, well that was paper dolls was like that. So, well you know, I don't know when it was but the co-op, like the general store, moved to our block. So then you could buy different things. They must have had paper dolls at that store or something. And then we used to make our own. We'd get plain paper and make our design dresses for the doll, you know, flat doll. We used to do that too. But, I mean we didn't have anything. We didn't have anything in camp so what did you do?

RP: Do you remember a building called the Toy Loan Library where, where you could go and, and rent out a toy or...

HM: No, no.

RP: Did, did you end up, did you get toys in camp one way or the other?

HM: No, no.

RP: You just had some doll, you had some dolls and that was...

HM: Paper dolls and marbles and jacks and that's about it, jump rope maybe. Yeah. But it was only me. My kid brother was a baby yet, so. Maybe my girlfriend, you know Janet, they had ten kids in the family, so maybe they had all kinds of things. But we didn't, I didn't.

RP: Do you remember, do you recall how your room, did your room change at all over the time that you lived in it, in the barrack?

HM: Not really, not really.

RP: Curtains on the windows?

HM: I don't think my mother even got curtains or anything.

RP: Do you remember when they put in linoleum on the floor?

HM: I don't remember but they must have, yeah. 'Cause the scorpions used to come up the knots, knotholes, you know, from the floor, from the pine floor. Yeah. So they must have put linoleum. I don't remember them putting it in specifically. But they must have.

RP: And do you recall a, the dust coming up into your room?

HM: Oh yes. Even from the window. It just, it was such fine dust. It just came right in the room. And we had dust storms all the time. I mean it was a desert, you know, basically. So, we had those dust storms all the time. But the mountains were majestic. They were beautiful.

RP: How about snow? Had you seen snow before?

HM: Oh yeah, snow every winter. Summer was like a oven. It was like probably a hundred plus during the summer. So a lot of people start -- I shouldn't say a lot -- a few people started making cellars. A little room down below the barrack so they could go down there and at least cool off a little, 'cause it was cooler in those little cellars. Yeah, it was cooler.

RP: Did you go down in one of those?

HM: Yeah. My friend had, her parents had one.

RP: In Block 21?

HM: Yeah in Block 21. I remember going down there. And it was so much cooler.

RP: So was there, how did you enter into that cellar from your room?

HM: Oh they had like steps. They built in steps like. And it wasn't lined. It was dirt. Everything's dirt. But it's just a hole in the ground, big hole in the ground where you could cool off.

RP: And you just sat there on a, in a chair, just enjoying...

HM: We didn't even have a chair. I sat on the ground.

RP: You sat on the ground.

HM: I didn't have a chair in there. Indian-style, you know, sit on the ground.

RP: There was, were there other ways to cool off for you?

HM: No. Oh well, later on they started opening up the reservoir.

RP: Reservoir?

HM: Yeah, there was a reservoir that they used for the farmers I think. You know they were farming the vegetables and food that we ate? I think it was for that. But there was a big reservoir, I would call it a reservoir. And they used to let us go splash around in there. But the MP would be at the gate because you had to leave camp to get there. And we had to have some kind of ID to get back in too. And we had to get back in before sunset, yeah. I only got to go once. Because I had to always watch my kid brother 'cause my mother was off, off doing something all the time. She took up knitting I know.

RP: Oh did she?

HM: Oh yeah. She made beautiful sweaters. Yeah. In fact, I gotta show you the tsubomi that his mom made. He wouldn't let me show you the one over the bed. But I got, I found another one that was nice. You get the idea.

RP: So did you go to the reservoir with a group of kids? I mean it was a...

HM: Probably I went with my friends. But I had to leave early. I couldn't stay. I don't know what my mother did. She was always gone. So I had to babysit my kid brother. And he was not only allergic to the milk, but he was allergic to something there in Manzanar so his middle of his elbows, back of his knees, he'd get eczema. So we had to put wooden planks, yeah, like it was broken, so he wouldn't scratch. Same thing with the back of his knees. So he couldn't do anything. I had to just watch him so he doesn't get in trouble. But he couldn't do anything. So, that was what I had to do.

RP: Do you know, do you know folks who were -- and maybe it was your kid brother -- who were bothered by the dust, you know, the continuous dust?

HM: That probably didn't help any 'cause he was asthmatic. He was asthmatic too. If he caught a cold, oh my gosh. Wheezed and coughed and couldn't breathe you know. So I'm sure the dust didn't help him any.