<Begin Segment 16>

MR: Just to kind of get it straight, how long were you in camp? When did you leave to go to...

YH: Minidoka?

MR: Uh-huh.

YH: I got there in September and I left in about May or June, in there. I wasn't in there a year, and just left. I don't know how, who paid for my transportation or anything.

MR: And you said you worked for this man and his business, what kind of business?

YH: He had a linen and rag business, wholesale linens and rags, he had two. And I was in the linen side. And he had quite a few workers there. But he was so good. And then he had a party one time at his place, which was unusual, they're not real sociable people. And they knew that he had a girl, and one of the, he was an attorney and he was Jewish, and he yelled out, "Hey, Yone." And Ben right away said, "What do you want?" "What do you want? I'll get it for you." He didn't want me to have to go out there. And he said, "That's okay." So Ben says, "Well, no, what is it?" He just didn't want to put me in a spot that would be embarrassing. And so he came to the kitchen and got a glass of water and went back. But he's just very protective and such a nice man. Well, she was nice, too, but I think he was aware of what people, how sensitive you can be. And when you have someone like that, you feel like, well, he's protecting you, and you feel good.

MR: You mentioned earlier that the experience of going through their home and eventually working for him made you feel like a member of society again. Can you talk about how you felt?

YH: Well, when I was working for them, housework, it's... I don't know. I wasn't happy doing that, but I was getting paid, so I'm getting some money. And I really wanted to hurry up and get out, but I had to save my money to go to just the two classes I went at nighttime. And I wasn't very good at that either. [Laughs] Like shorthand and typing or something, not real hot. I mean, I wasn't the kind that, "Wow, we'll pick you up, we'll hire you." But he took me in his office, and I worked with the purchasing agent, and they were very good to me. And I did a little bookkeeping, which I didn't know much about, but they taught me. So I worked there until I came back to Portland.

MR: When was that?

YH: I don't know. We had an apartment, my sister and I finally got an apartment, and then when they said we could come back to the West Coast, she really got on it. My mother was in camp, so she picked her up, they went from there on the train, and they went, came to the Epworth Methodist Church. They had the old building, and that was used as a hostel, more or less, until people could find a place. And so she stayed there until a house became available, and that was, took a little doing. The people weren't ready to move out, and then, so she called the relocation man, and he went out there and told 'em to get the heck outta there by such and such a date, "This belongs to them." He was, and so that was how we got it back.

MR: So there people living in your house?

YH: Oh yeah.

MR: Were they paying rent?

YH: They were paying rent, but we didn't see any of it, I don't think. They weren't paying rent. My sister and I kept, we had to pay, there was a mortgage on the house and we were paying that off. We were paying it, every month we'd send a check in, the two of us, so that the mortgage would be okay. I don't know what happened to that money that they were supposed to -- they, well, the man that did the greenhouse and took over, he ran off. He cashed in everything he could and he sold the truck and he left the house, just left the greenhouse. And the woman, I don't know if she was, she paid the rent, where it went. I have no idea. And we came back after, well, the house, the greenhouse was all torn down. It'd just collapsed from lack of use. And so that was not our property either, because the tax, it had been eaten up by the taxes. Our house was okay 'cause we were paying the mortgage on it, so we were able to move in there. But then that property next is all greenhouse, and there's about six or eight lots there and they're all collapsed. And so my sister and I went to the city hall and we talked to the guy -- we went there and said, asked him about the property. He was an old, older man and he looked at us and he smiled, and he says, "I've been saving this for you." I thought, I just started... and so he said, "You can buy it back any way you want," and so we did, we paid. How often do you meet a guy like that? Just so nice. He must've been late fifties, sixties. And we came home and said, "It's still there, we can buy it," and he had, I know, people asking about it, and he said it's not for sale. And so we never did anything nice for him, and I just feel a little bit guilty at that point, 'cause... you know. But he, then when my dad came back he started, they cleaned it up. And my brother had come home from the war then, and so he helped and a friend helped, and they rebuilt two greenhouses. That was the extent of it. Then they had the rest in planted flowers and things. But it, see, 'cause my brother had gone... I think he volunteered, he went in the 442. 'Cause he came through Denver when we were there and we didn't know if we were gonna see him again. My mother sort of, she said she didn't really worry, she worried, but he's so short, she says he wouldn't have to dig a foxhole too deep. It's sort of cute, you know. I think that was something that kept her... and there was an older fellow that used to come to our unit in Minidoka, and he looked after my brother. He made sure, he just sort of made it a point to look after him, which was nice, 'cause he was only eighteen, I think, when he went in, and this other fellow must've been twenty-something. And so he looked after him, and he didn't get hurt or anything and he came back.

<End Segment 16> - Copyright © 2003 Oregon Nikkei Endowment and Densho. All Rights Reserved.