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LT: So let's go back, then, to your decision to leave camp. So your mother and you and three siblings were living in camp. How did you decide that you wanted to leave?

DS: Well, I think my mother was very much against it. My sister was in Chicago with her husband, and so I had a place to go. Well, my mother was very much against it. We had heard stories about Chicago, how bad it was in Chicago.

LT: In what ways?

DS: Well, they had, they said then they had "white slavery" where some people would meet you at the train station and take you away, girls, young girls. And so that was the story then and my mother thought, "Oh, you can't go." But I talked her into it, and she packed us a lunch. I just decided that it was time to get out of there, mainly because my sister was in Chicago and I had a place to go. And I had many friends in Chicago. A lot of people who left camp when to Chicago. So where I lived in Chicago was all people from camps. I knew a lot, I had a lot of friends in Chicago, and that was why I made my decision to go. Why would I waste more time in camp when I could go out? And because I had a place to go, I think it was easy for me to go. And like I say, my girlfriend went to Madison, Wisconsin, and she stayed, had a place to stay with the minister, and she went to the University of Wisconsin, that's where she was going. And her brothers, she had her brothers come out later, too. So that's why I went to Chicago.

LT: Okay. When you went to Chicago, what did you expect? You were a city girl from Seattle, you've been to camp in the rural area in Puyallup, now you're off to a new city. What did you expect life would be like there?

DS: Well, I expected that I was out of camp, and it would probably be like Seattle, I mean, city, much bigger than Seattle. And I had to go find a job, I knew that. I was able to stay with my sister. In fact, I stayed with her until... oh, yeah, my mother and sister got out of camp, and my brother got out of camp. I had to find a job, and my first job... and Chicago then was not like Chicago today. I mean, it was still, to me, it was a bigger Seattle, I mean, the town was big. But you could make your way, you could get on the streetcar, you can get on the streetcar and go places. And so I was able to take the streetcar and I don't know how he did it, go look for a job. I think I had... I don't know how I got this interview, but I went to a dental manufacturing place run by a sister and her husband, and her brother was in the navy. And I worked there for a while. It was a small place. And then I worked for some guy who was on Michigan Avenue, can't even remember what he made. And from there I worked at an optometry college. My boss had this place on Michigan Avenue, moved to this place, the optometry college, and he called me and asked if I would come. And so I went to work for them. And I think that's where I was when I left Chicago. But I lived with my sister for a while, and then, like I say, my mother... my younger sister and I lived together, and then my mother, then we all moved to the north side and lived with my sister who was married. And then we moved again to an apartment after her husband came back from the army.

LT: So your mother joined you?

DS: Yeah, my mother and brother, my mother and sister came out from camp and joined me when the camp closed. They had to come out. And my brother joined the army from camp, went to Shelby. And then he was sent overseas, and came to visit me once from Camp Shelby, and then he was sent overseas, and then he came back on the hospital ship. He had ulcers, developed ulcers and he was sent to the hospital, the VA hospital on the near north side in Chicago. And I remember going to see him with my girlfriend whose boyfriend was there, and we took the Elevated one night and went to the VA hospital to see him. And he was discharged soon after that. I think soon after that, they opened up the West Coast where my brother and my mother went back to Seattle. And our house was still there, so they just moved back in.

<End Segment 10> - Copyright © 2013 Oregon Nikkei Endowment and Densho. All Rights Reserved.