<Begin Segment 16>

AC: And so what did your parents find or what did you find when you moved back home? You've gotten all your belongings, you put them up in this room, you locked it away, you let the farm out to be taken care of by neighbors --

MH: Uh-huh.

AC: What did you discover when you came back?

MH: It was okay. Sometimes I would want something out of that room, and I would write to my neighbor and he would send it to me, you know. But we were lucky we had a place that we put our stuff, so we still had our original, some of our original furniture.

AC: And so what changes did you notice in your parents as a result of the war?

MH: After they came back? Like I told you, my dad wouldn't drive or drive a tractor or drive a car.

AC: Why was that?

MH: I don't know. He just wouldn't. That changed him. He knew how to farm, you know. So between my younger brother and me, we kind of ran that farm until my brothers came home. Of course, we had a good neighbor that kind of helped us.

AC: And you're still running the two orchards?

MH: We were running the one we moved to, and I think finally Dad sold that place up there. But I still remember, he used to go early in the morning and work a couple of hours and come back, and we'd all eat breakfast, and he'd already got two hours of work already, and he did that. Right now when I think of my parents... and being a woman, I think more of my mother, what she went through. You know, she didn't have any conveniences. She had all of us kids. She had to work out in the field. I don't know how they did it, but she developed heart, her heart went out, and so she passed on before Dad.

AC: While, while you were in Hood River?

MH: In Hood River, yes. I was here.

AC: How did you meet your husband?

MH: Well, it's ironic. I knew him before I even went to camp. They used to have what they call a basketball tournament. It was in Gresham at the time, so Portland, Hood River, Auburn and another town in Washington all came together for a basketball tournament. And of course after our basketball, we had dances and dinners and stuff, and I had met him. And what do you know, I go to Pinedale and there he was. [Laughs]

AC: So you met him in Pinedale again?

MH: Yeah, and Tule Lake.

AC: Oh, he was also, so did you date when you were in Tule Lake with him?

MH: Uh-huh.

AC: So what did you do, here you are in a camp?

MH: Well you know, you visit, you play cards, and you might go to a dance or like that. Then he went in the service, and he was in the MIS, Military Intelligence Service. He was in Tokyo after, he was in Philippines and then Japan surrendered, and so he was sent to Tokyo. And it's a farce, but he had to listen to the Tojo trials, you know. And then he, I don't think he visited his relatives. But anyway, he served. And then when he came back, we got married.

AC: All this time during the war, you knew you had a sister who was in Japan?

MH: Yeah.

AC: And you know we were at war with Japan, and we were bombing Japan, how did you feel?

MH: Yeah. I just happened to be working in Portland. After my brother came home, I took a job in Portland, and my father called and said he finally got word that Masako had been bombed in Nagoya, fire bomb, and so they were coming, they were Buddhist, so they were coming to Portland for a memorial service. So he told me to be at that service at a certain day and certain time. And you know, how he found out my sister died is because my boyfriend was in Tokyo. So Dad wrote to Harold -- his name is Harold -- and wrote a letter to my uncle, so he sent this letter on to my uncle. My uncle wrote back to Harold, Harold back to my father and said Masako was bombed, and that was about two and a half years after this happened. But that's how he found out, through my friend. And so she had a hard life I would say. She never got to live with her parents although she lived with her auntie, and war comes along and she gets bombed.

AC: Was she married at the time?

MH: Yeah. She had two children, three, three had died. So when I went to Japan, in Japan, they have a graveyard or whatever, cemetery, right near their place, so she's buried right in the uncle's or my dad's home place.

<End Segment 16> - Copyright © 2004 Oregon Nikkei Endowment and Densho. All Rights Reserved.