<Begin Segment 7>

JC: So you and John are back in Oregon. You've gotten married. Then where does your life take you? Are you, where do you live?

FO: Well, we started out at Vanport, and we were there almost, I think we were there almost a year and a half.

JC: Tell me about what, what was Vanport?

FO: Well, Vanport was like a city in itself. And the way the Vanport grew up was for shipyard workers, was it not? Was that Henry Kaiser who started the Vanport, but it became a regular town with the store, the stores, the post office, the whole works. But it was temporary dwelling for us. And Johnny acquired this plot here, and he was out here working when the flood came.

JC: So tell me about that flood. What was, what do you remember of that time?

FO: Well, John was employed with the City Planning Commission, and he was one of the members who surveyed the, the dam, and he didn't like what it, it looked like. And he said, you know, "We better start moving." And we were fortunate enough to move some of our things out to the Southworths' home.

JC: And then --

FO: And fortunately, he came home the, let's see, this happened quite late in the afternoon, did it not, and he must have come back to Vanport around noon, and so we were fortunate enough to get out. But it would have been disastrous if he weren't there to pick us up because I had a baby by then.

JC: So when the flood or when the dike broke, you were actually at the Southworths' or in Gresham or away from Vanport?

FO: No. We left right, I think we left when the dike did break, but we were able to get out before it got real bad.

JC: And for someone who has never been to Vanport or doesn't know that, what was that like? I mean, what does that mean when the dike breaks? What did you experience? What did you see? What --

FO: I didn't except for the pictures, and we never went back to see the devastation.

JC: So those, your, the house that you'd been living in, whatever, you left there?

FO: Well, they were huge barracks about two-story, well, it's like barracks, but they were two-story with how many units? It's like a big apartment complex but hundreds of them.

JC: And that was all flooded?

FO: Uh-huh. Have you seen pictures of the flooded apartments floating? I think we have a whole, there was an article not too long ago of the flood. And that was in 1948, a warm sunny Sunday. It was Memorial Day, was it not?

JC: So after Vanport and you had some land somewhere, what happened then?

FO: Well, this is the lot that Johnny was trying to clear to build the house. So after the flood, we thought we would be real strong and courageous. We were going to really rough it, and our farm friend said that they have a new tent that they would loan us. So we set up a tent here and lived for the summer. Well, he started building the house; our house which was built in stages.

<End Segment 7> - Copyright © 2003 Oregon Nikkei Endowment and Densho. All Rights Reserved.