Densho Digital Archive - George Iseri Interview (denshovh-igeorge

<Begin Segment 18>

GI: In Tule Lake, obviously that was a totally lake bottom, that whole area was. That lake itself that was existing there about the time we were there was so fertile with goose manure and stuff that raise those crops without putting anymore fertilizer on. I went out there in the field once with my shed manager, and he said, "George, I want to show you something." So we drove out to the field, and we headed across that lake bed that had the geese on it, going twenty, thirty miles an hour right through it. It's just like a blanket was being lifted, lifted off the field. It was that thick with geese. But being a lake bed right there by the packing shed, ladies of the camp, well, I'd say the older ladies, not our wife's age but my mother's age, started digging through the dirt, and they found all kinds of shells, sea shells, and thought they were getting some good ones, and they started making, like they did a lot of other things, making nice kind of costume jewelry and stuff. You know, pretty strange making necklaces and things like that. And the sad part of it was that there were a few lives lost when they dug too far and the thing came down on them, you know. We had a few things like that happen. But along that line, I wish I could have saved some. One of the favorite things I think they made was... what do they call that? New growth or old growth wood. When they made lumber, the pieces toward the outside with the bark on it, well, some of those pieces they threw away and used for firewood. And the one that's got bark on it and some wood on the inside, some of the inmates, the residents there, they took those and made turtles out of them. The bark would become the shell, and underneath it was white. Okay, then they carved the legs of the, legs and the head for the turtle and made beautiful looking turtles. They went there to the, they call it greasewood. I guess it's the sage brush. I'm not sure. But all twisted up sticks, good, they'd make canes out of them, polish them up, varnish them, beautiful job. And they made so many things like that out of waste material. There was some furniture and things that I made, little night stands and things. That came out of piles of firewood that was brought from the lumber mills, the scrap that they would dump in our block. Oh, there was lots of things. Tom Itami here that lived here most of his life had, there's a person in Tule Lake called "Alaska," cross the canal or a ditch or slough there, and he had the most beautiful porch. He had built a beautiful porch on his end unit. And again, that's, he just borrowed some of the lumber from where we were and made a beautiful porch there.

As far as camp life is concerned, they give us pretty much our own government. By the way, the people that worked there, the project director and them, people that worked in the camps were exceptionally good to us; in fact, maybe too good to us. But I know some children who took names of the camp director or other people there got their names of the kids from people that worked there for the government in the camps. I've had occasion to go back to Tule Lake a couple of times. I've never been to a reunion yet, but I was disappointed that about fifteen years ago, I think I had my kids with us. No, it was longer than that. That must have been my grandkids. It wasn't my little grand, my kids maybe, and we went there, and one of the old buildings that was at the entrance way was converted into a store, so we went in there and visited. We asked them about buildings that were left at camp. They knew damn little about the camps, people that's right there now. And since then, I think they've changed it a lot. They've had a lot of pilgrimages there and monument. They've learned, but disappointing that the people that lived right there didn't know anything about, hardly anything about the camp. About a year or so ago, I went there to the camp because I wanted to see what was there again, and I heard that the post office, the interior of the post office there was for sale in Klamath Falls. So our local convention and visitor's bureau appropriated some money for us, and so I volunteered go down take a look at it. And then while I was at it, I went down to the city of Tulelake which I'd never been to before. It's a nice little community and had a little museum about the camp, and I was pleased to see that. But we located the part of the so-called post office and made an arrangement to go after it, and I thought, well, I'm using $3500 of the city's money here now, dollar city money, I'd better find out about it. And so I called back there and I asked them to give me something to authenticate that because it didn't have a name or anything on it, and it could be from anywhere. And they couldn't provide me anything, so we never did go get it. But imagine, my feeling that it probably wasn't from the camp, and I wasn't about to spend 3500 dollars of our money, local money here to get something like that. Whatever else...