<Begin Segment 14>

JK: While you were going, in between the University of Oregon, did you stay at Vanport at any time at the family home?

AO: I cannot remember ever staying there for any length of time. Maybe for a couple of weeks or something, but I never did stay there. For example, when the flood happened in May of '48, I was down in Eugene in my pre-med studies at the time, so I was not aware until after it had happened.

JK: And then you came to Portland to help look for your mom.

AO: Yeah. My mother was one of the few that drowned in the Vanport flood, and I think there was another Japanese person named Mizuno. I remember that name because mizu, the first two syllables, is "water" in Japanese, and they were saying Mizuno. And then my mother's name was Izumi, mizu-i backwards. But that had mizu in it, too. And they were saying both the names had "water" in their names, which is coincidental.

JK: When you came up to Portland to help look for your mom, shared that experience.

AO: Right after the flood, of course, the bridges were washed out, and we were unable to find out if any of the Vanport refugees were over in Vancouver. There was no communication. Phone lines were out. And so one of my close friends, Sam Okazaki, he had a car, and Sam took me and we drove down to the Bridge of the Gods by Cascade Falls, and drove across the bridge and over to Vancouver. And he drove me around in Vancouver, we went to all the rescue stations, and the hospital, the police station, but we couldn't find any trace that my mother had been over there. So we came back empty handed.

JK: It must have been very hard for your father, because in his newspaper, he had written, they had written a story asking for help or any information. Were they ever able to find your mom?

AO: At the time of the flood, no. There were several Japanese farmers and fishermen who, when the flood waters subsided a little bit, they, for example, they identified the unit that my mother, that my dad and mother lived in. And so we took a boat, went out to that unit, and made a thorough search of the apartment there, but we couldn't find any trace of her. Her body floated after... I think it was about three or four weeks after the flood was over, that the body was, floated and they found it.

JK: So they were able to find it?

AO: Yeah.

<End Segment 14> - Copyright © 2013 Oregon Nikkei Endowment and Densho. All Rights Reserved.