<Begin Segment 5>

TR: So what grade school did you go to?

AN: Sisum Grade School.

TR: What was it like in grade school for you?

AN: Oh, great. It was wonderful. Yeah. It's a country grade school, and we had a horse barn and the Kalusics, Czechoslovakian people, would come, and they came with their horse and buggy. And there were about four Kalusics I think it was, and they'd unhitch the horse and leave it in the barn. And I know Keith Witty would drive his pony. Oh boy, he was handsome and dashing. And then, oh, that was over on that side of the school. Then over on this side, there was the water pump, and it was a long handled pump, and you'd go up and down and up and down and quick, you'd run around and catch the water and drink it. Well, we hadn't, we didn't think anything of it at the time, but right next to it was the girls' toilet. You can imagine what the school, what the government would say now about that. [Laughs] Yeah, it was, and then, then we had a cloakroom where we'd put all our lunches and our coats and so on, boots, whatever, and then over here was the library. Well, it's a country school, you know. Well, the library was a little doorway, and it had shelves. It was just about the size, oh, about this size I guess, about that big, and you would go in there and then all the shelves on the wall, and so we'd just push, push against the back of the wall, and then we'd step up with our feet and go up the steps. We'd go to the top of the library. It was primitive.

TR: How many students were in this school?

AN: How many students? Oh, dear, must have been about, well, there was the little room, and then there was the big room and the, in the little room was the first four grades, and they had one teacher for the first four grades and then the four grades. So the eighth grade was the big room, there's a teacher for that room, too. Oh, I don't know, must have been about twenty, maybe that many, something like that.

TR: Were there any other Japanese American kids there?

AN: No.

TR: You were the only ones?

AN: Uh-huh, uh-huh, yeah. Yeah.

TR: And was there anything like what we would consider discrimination these days in your school?

AN: No, I wouldn't say so in the school. I think there was, probably, there was, but it wasn't in the school that I was aware of.

TR: Were there any other Japanese American families around where you lived? Did you have contact with any other Japanese American families?

AN: Well, four miles from where we lived, the Fujis lived there. The Fujis, the ones that my parents, my father was partners with Mr. Fuji in Emmett, so they were, yes. Oh, yeah, I can remember we never, oh, there were people in Nampa which is nine miles from where we lived, and one year, our parents decided we needed to learn some Japanese. My father spoke English to us, and my mother spoke a combination of English and Japanese, and so they all decided we needed to learn some Japanese. So we learned Hirohani, what's the easiest one?

TR: Hirohani is the hiragana poem.

AN: Hiragana. No, there's an easier, katakana, the one that's easier. I remember that a little bit vaguely. But we had, there were four of us, and then Mr. Takeuchi who was partners with my dad when they were young when they were just kids in that farm, and he sent two of his children, Lillian, Paul over to our house. And there were, then the six kids and then the sensei came and stayed at our house. And he took our old car, must been a Model T Ford, must have been, I don't know, and he drove us, six of us to start with, and then we went over four miles to pick up the Fujis. There were several of them. And then we picked up some more along the way. Somehow, we got in and went to the Nazarene College where they had the Japanese lessons. And I can remember while we were chugging along and, oh, where's Paul? We missed him. Oh, we look way back there. He was crying. I can still remember he took his cap off, dusting his cap off and crying and running, trying to catch up with us. We picked him up, took him to school with us.

TR: That sounds like quite a long trip.

AN: No, nine miles.

TR: So how often did you have Japanese school?

AN: Oh, during the summer, I don't remember. It must have been several times a week, to send the children over here and then have the teacher come and stay. Maybe it was every day during the summer. I don't know. I don't remember very much of the Japanese.

TR: So did it stay with you?

AN: No. I felt that I would like to know, remember some of it, so I had, I wrote to my friend Mary Fuji, and she wrote some katakana and hiragana for me, and I have it here in my horror room that I got there. You have to have one of those, one of those in your home, so the iron is out and the typewriter is out. The drawers are open, and I've got that hanging on the wall, the Japanese alphabet.

<End Segment 5> - Copyright © 2004 Oregon Nikkei Endowment and Densho. All Rights Reserved.