Densho Digital Archive - Helen Mori Interview (denshovh-mhelen

<Begin Segment 16>

RP: We were talking about Mr. Abe and you said that during the wintertime he worked as a policeman.

HM: Policeman, uh-huh.

RP: And in the summer he was riding a horse.

HM: Mounted police.

RP: Mounted police.

HM: He was mounted police.

RP: And do you remember the name of his horse?

HM: Yeah, his horse's name was Tommy. He let me get on it once but I was scared because it was tall. I was surprised. Once you get on it you're way up there. You're looking down. So he let me ride it a little then I wanted to get down so.

RP: Do you know where they kept the horses?

HM: No, I don't. After I talked to you I was thinking where did they keep the horses? I think there were only two though. Mr. Saeki rode the white one and my father rode the brown one.

RP: Mr. Saeki?

HM: I think his name was Saeki, the other mounted police. I think he was the captain of the whole police. 'Cause winter time, he seemed like he was the boss, big boss.

RP: How would you spell his last name?

HM: Saeki... probably S-A-E-K-I. He wasn't in our block though. I don't know what block he was in.

RP: And ... you may not know this, but did Mr. Abe have previous experience with horses at all?

HM: I think he was in the calvary in Japan. Yeah, I think so. He didn't like... whenever we'd bring it up he doesn't like it, but he had a uma tattooed on his arm, forearm, the character for horse, uma, was tattooed on his arm. So whenever we'd bring that up he used to get mad. He was ashamed of it. But that was in his young days. Yeah, I mean, how many men have tattoos of a, from that period. He had uma tattooed on his arm. [Laughs] I think his folks owned a pool hall in the Hakata, you know, his family, my stepfather's family. But...

RP: Where would he ride his horse? Where, did he have a patrol area that...

HM: I think they had a patrol area. I know after a while they used to let us leave camp in the hot summertime. So the, we splashed around in Bairs Creek and there was another creek... George's Creek, Bairs Creek and George's Creek. And since we were able to leave camp he used to just patrol with his horse and make sure everything was okay and that kind of thing. So I think it was basically to patrol the perimeter of the barbed wire.

RP: So folks who were, would be allowed to go out and swim or picnic or...

HM: Not necessarily picnic, we just went there to splash around in the water. I don't remember having picnics out there. Maybe some other people did but we didn't.

RP: How about other recreation? Did you and some of the kids play softball or...

HM: The older kids got to do that. They had the diamond and the basketball court and stuff like that.

RP: And you got to watch them?

HM: Yeah, we watched. We watched baseball...

RP: Kow Maruki became a pretty --

HM: Kow? He was athletic. He was very athletic.

RP: -- celebrated baseball player.

HM: That's right. He was good. Very athletic. Shi Nomura was also athletic but he got hit in the head with a... what do you call it, shot put ball or something? Something like that. I can't remember now. But he was injured.