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JC: Frances, tell me a little bit about what school life was like in Japan when you were there, just sort of what the school day was like, and also did they, were there any preparations, or did they tell you as schoolchildren anything about the war that was going on or the war that might be going on?

FO: It seemed like very little, the kids weren't exposed to war talk hardly at all. The grade school that I went, here, all I remember is the harshness, the physical harshness of Japanese public schools. I would tell my friends, "In America a school bus comes and picks us up, and we go into a schoolroom that's all heated." In Japan, there might be little charcoal burners. But it's cold, and I would have to sit on my knees to stay warm during the school. And then after school, maybe the Americans should do this, the kids do the cleanup. After classes are over, buckets and little hand thick mats, the kids go scoot with that like a human mop. They're doing all the cleanup after school. This is grade school. The kids do all the janitorial work. And when we tell them that in America, we don't have to do any of this. And in the beginning, they'd say, "Well, you don't have to do it. You're not used to it." And then they would be that nice to me saying, "It's too cold for you," whatever. They would sort of pamper me, but that was grade school. It was, and the kids bring their cold lunch. They do serve hot tea, but the school, grade school life was, it was harsh. And one day, we took some candy to school, and no one would accept. And they said, "We're not allowed, we're not allowed. We'll be punished." So you can't give anybody any tidbits, that sort of thing.

JC: So did you have any sense that a war was going on, or that Japan might be going to war against the United States?

FO: Well, we did see send-offs of military people. People are seeing them off at the railroad stations, they're singing in unison and that sort of thing, but we didn't make much issue about it. Maybe it was too common of a thing. I don't know because war was on with Manchuria and over that way, life, they'd been at war so long that we didn't make much issue of it.

JC: Did your mother talk about it at all? As a child, you probably didn't have anything to compare it with. Did your mother?

FO: No. Except one thing we remember is my brother is two years older than I, and she said, "I want Joe to hurry up and return to Japan because I don't want him in the Japanese military." I can remember that so well. And here I'm telling my older sister just lately, "Wasn't that wise of her? She, she was wise in many ways." Because here in Oregon, there are, I read of people who served in the Japanese army, the American-born Niseis, and they had a difficult time returning to the States after that. I think one congressman helped one individual that I know of in Portland, and he finally was able to return. But after having served in the Japanese army, they didn't want him back.

JC: When you... tell me about, tell me about going to Japan on the boat, and tell me about coming back to the United States on the boat and how, what those, how those experiences were different, what they were like?

FO: Well going to Japan, of course, is just a big adventure. We were, got down on third class. And I remember my older sister, she got a babysitting job of this darling little gal from first class. She reminds of a little Shirley Temple. And my sister and I were talking one day, and I said, "How'd you get that job as a babysitter? You're in third class, and you got picked out to babysit for this darling little girl." I remember that.

JC: How long did the trip take in those days?

FO: Oh, it was like fourteen days on this ship. But like I say, it was a big adventure for us. And it was the Hikawa Maru that we went to Japan on. And lo and behold, I returned to America on the same Hikawa Maru, and it was one of the three sister ships of Japan. But this one was used as a hospital ship, so it did not get destroyed by bombs. And today, it's a historic relic in Yokohama in that museum area. We were there, and I was telling my sister -- she went to Japan last fall. And she said, she was sorry, she didn't get to visit the museum. She said time just didn't allow her to visit. And I told her, well, the Hikawa Maru is sitting there, and Chinatown is beautiful. It's a nicest Chinatown in comparison to the San Francisco's Chinatown or the Vancouver, B.C. one because the Chinatown in San Francisco and Vancouver, B.C. have become old and rather decrepit; whereas, Japan's Chinatown is new. And these Chinese merchants, they'll greet you with, "Irasshaimase," using Japanese terms as if, as if they were Japanese. It was delightful.

JC: So your trip over was an adventure. What was your trip back?

FO: Oh, sad leaving my mother all alone, and there were three of us in this one cabin. One girl, she married a friend of John in Sacramento, so we correspond today, and we just happen to become roommates. We didn't know each other until then. But I remember coming back. We had lots of refugees, and they were mostly headed for Canada, and I think they were Jewish refugees. But from what I learned from Mrs. Southworth, my schoolteacher/mentor, she said they were mostly well to do Jewish people who came in that era, and they have settled in Portland, and some of the people are outstanding today. They were many people who were able to get away. And I think they came via China or whatever, but they came back on the Japanese ships, and they were refugees, 1941, on the same ship I came back on. I remember that very well, full of refugees because normally you don't have all those, all the foreigners like that on the ships.

JC: Did your ship leave from Japan and stop somewhere along the way?

FO: No. We came from Yokohama to Seattle, no stopping.

JC: So the refugees --

FO: And I'm told that was next to the last ship that I came on. From thereon, there were no more ships coming to the U.S. from Japan.

JC: Were people on board the ship afraid at all?

FO: Not that I could... except for the refugees. You wouldn't know what they were thinking of, but, but I really remember all the refugees, so many on that ship.

JC: Did you, did you interact? Did anybody interact with the refugees and talk to them about --

FO: Well, in those, did very little. In fact, in Japan, you know, I craved English speaking people because there was no, you know, you feel like you're shut in a room when you leave America, and you don't know the language, and you wished somebody were speaking English to you. And occasionally, we would see foreigners go by on motorcycles and this and that, and my mother would say, "Why don't you strike up a conversation with them?" Well, they may not be Americans. Maybe they're Germans, who knows. But we craved for English speaking people. It was like being shut in a room with nobody to talk with.

<End Segment 12> - Copyright © 2003 Oregon Nikkei Endowment and Densho. All Rights Reserved.