<Begin Segment 15>

FO: But I don't know how people feel about the women going into service today. But in my particular case, setting aside the stigma of what my peers may have thought, it all came out for the best.

JC: So the stigma is you say that maybe it was loose girls that went in or something?

FO: Well, that was the feeling I think society had at that era, uh-huh, like you're not supposed to date a sailor in peacetime. So it's hard to be a peacetime military man.

JC: Or woman.

FO: Yeah.

JC: Well, it's as you say, you know, for you it opened many doors.

FO: Uh-huh. Yes, in comparison with what I would have had to endure and waste my life in the internment camps. The internment camps, that was a sad situation.

JC: Do you have friends that were in the internment camps?

FO: Oh, yes, most all of my Gresham friends. They all spent many years in internment camps. But they did go out in the summer to work in the canneries and such. But in the winter, they went back home to the internment camp. But it was so unproductive in those years when they could have made something for themselves.

JC: Do you ever have a conversation with them? I mean you had the opportunity to go to a labor camp. Did they talk about, did other people have the opportunity or --

FO: They could have.

JC: Did they say why they didn't go?

FO: Well, of course, many of them with parents, and it's probably the parent's wishes that you stay here where it's safe probably, that was the reason.

JC: So in some ways, your opportunity came because you and your sister --

FO: We were adventurous. We didn't know what we were getting into, but we went for it.

JC: It was very brave.

FO: Yes. When I look back, it was. We didn't know what we were facing.

JC: If you had that opportunity again, if you were in that same place again, would you do what you did?

FO: I don't know. It would depend on the circumstances, I would think. Regardless of, regardless of our age, we would still do what we thought was right, I think.

JC: Knowing what you know now, would you do it again?

FO: Unless there were better opportunities. We were just grasping for whatever. That was what it amounted to.

JC: Okay. That's great. I mean, it's an interesting thing to think about that. You know, you sort of grabbed for what was there. Your sister particularly said, "I'm not staying here." You're the younger sister. I'm sure you wanted to stay with your older sister, right? So you're going to go wherever she goes.

FO: Yes, because she told me, "I'm going. You can stay here if you want." Well I thought, my goodness, staying. It was assembly center, and it was really, it was really unorganized. The assembly center was a mess, disorganization, whatever. You can't tolerate that life very long.

JC: Yes. So, and besides, she's your family.

FO: You know, I have to credit her for saying, well, she didn't try very hard, but she did tell me, "You stay here if you want to." And I thought well, what am I, what am I going to do?

JC: What happened to your sister after going to Nyssa?

FO: Oh, she was gung ho'er. She went to College of Idaho, and then she went to Missouri. I think it was all through Miss Azalea Peet again. With the Quakers, is it Friends, what is that? Anyway, they paved her way for her. She's a graduate of University of Minnesota, worked her way through. She's a gung ho woman.

<End Segment 15> - Copyright © 2003 Oregon Nikkei Endowment and Densho. All Rights Reserved.