Densho Digital Archive - Jim Tsugawa Interview (denshovh-tjim

<Begin Segment 14>

AC: So when you first got there, how old were you at the time when you arrived in camp?

JT: Okay, 1942 I was eleven, yeah.

AC: Do you remember that first Christmas?

JT: Let's see. I don't remember. I think it was snowy, though.

AC: Were there decorations up, did people receive presents?

JT: No, I don't think so. No, I don't remember much about that.

AC: What about school? Did it take them a while to get schools organized, or were they organized immediately?

JT: No, I think it took them a little while to get organized, because they didn't figure on area schools, so they just took one of the blocks and made that into a school.

AC: So did you go to school?

JT: I went part of my fifth grade there.

AC: And how was it being in camp going to school?

JT: I don't remember. I remember they had me out in the discipline area lots. [Laughs]

AC: Why is that?

JT: I don't know, I guess I was not a good boy in school.

AC: Do you remember what kind of rascal things you did?

JT: No, I can't remember.

AC: What about your free time? You had lots of free time there. What did you enjoy doing?

JT: Well, let's see. Played a little, we were just kids, so in the summertime there was a canal that went by our area. And wintertime, it just kind of, the canal was, the water would come in and that would freeze over. And my brother Henry sent me some ice skates, so you could ice skate. Summertime, they released the water for irrigation purposes for the farms, and that became quite a raging little water stream there. And I would, if you started here, Alton, you'd end down maybe twenty yards down, that was that current. And then you got to the other side, and then you would borrow some of Farmer Brown's potatoes, and you'd jam it in your swimming suit, swim back, and then put 'em in a fire, and voila, it's baked potatoes. Big deal. [Laughs]

AC: Did you do, did you do that a lot?

JT: What?

AC: Did you do that a lot?

JT: Quite a bit. Then I think we had some drownings, you know, 'cause it was dangerous, that I think I would never let my grandchildren swim in that, you know, at the age of ten or eleven. And so I think the following year, I they diverted some of that water into kind of like a lake to make it into a safe swimming hole.

AC: Do you remember what happened when those drowning occurred? I mean, were you there, or did you just hear about them?

JT: Just heard about them.

AC: Were they young men like yourself?

JT: Yeah, young kids. Young kids.

AC: Were they all, again, trying to swim across to Farmer Brown's?

JT: Probably, probably. It was dangerous, as I look back on it now. So I, Alton, I stayed there in 1942, and then '43, Mom really got sick. And, of course, we had medical attention there, but she needed more expertise in the field of medicine. So a Reverend Johnson in Boise, Idaho, sponsored our family, rented us a home, and kind of looked over us. And so there was Mom and I, Helen, and George. And Mom was taken into the hospital, and she was operated on, sewed back up, because she was riddled with cancer throughout the body. So she passed away in December of 1943, so that left Helen and I and George in Boise, Idaho, in this home.