<Begin Segment 10>

MP: So what year were you married?

TH: 1943. I've been married almost, well, I would have been married almost sixty years. We did celebrate fifty-five years.

MP: Well, congratulations. That's a long time.

TH: Oh, yeah. It was good. Well, I still remember what my mother used to tell me. My wife was a very vivacious and likeable person, you know. She made a lot of friends here. She's a Seattle girl. She didn't know people from Portland. That's the one thing that I think the evacuation did. For our people being put into all these, you know, concentration camps if you want to call it that, you met people from other areas that you never would have had a chance to meet.

MP: That's a good point. So a lot of networking could go on and opportunities could occur.

TH: Yeah. That's why she, that's why she tells me she married me because I showed a lot of promise.

MP: How did you meet her?

TH: Well, it was arranged. She had a friend that knew me, and she introduced me to her quite by accident. One day, I got the rash, you know, from that, they were using chlorine in the water system, you know, and I'm allergic to chlorine. And when you bathed in the stuff or shower in it, your skin itches. It dries up and itches like crazy, so I had to go to the hospital. And she was a nurse's aide in the hospital, and she put calamine solution all over my back. I liked it, feel. [Laughs] It was great.

MP: So you asked her for a date?

TH: Oh, yeah. Well, we dated in the... we had a canal system in camp that was a runoff of water from some distant hill, and we camped, I mean, we picnic near there, the canal, I remember, with maybe two other friends that I have. They all had their girlfriends. One girl was pregnant. I didn't even know she was pregnant, and I made a remark. That's why you don't want to talk too much. I didn't know she was pregnant. He left the next day, left camp to marry her.

MP: So, but you, okay. There's a lot to talk about here because we're getting into this, the camp era here, and I do want to concentrate on that and, because you were not in the camp. I mean, let's, first we better clarify our terms because we're referring to the camp. When you say the camp, I think you're meaning the assembly center, right?

TH: No. Minidoka.

MP: Minidoka. Okay. But you were only in Minidoka for a short time, no?

TH: One month.

<End Segment 10> - Copyright © 2003 Oregon Nikkei Endowment and Densho. All Rights Reserved.