Alice Uriu 12/12/97 Davis, CA
SM: Alice was a student nurse at the time Pearl Harbor occurred and eventually worked in the Heart Mountain Hospital. I would like to begin by asking you to tell a little bit about where you grew up, your family, and just a general sense of your life prior to going to nursing school and then I would like to hear something about the education you received up until you were required to stop.
AU: I was born near Davis in a small town called Elmira near Vacaville. We only stayed about four years. Then we moved south of the bay area to a place called Mountain View which is between Palo Alto and San Jose. I spent all of my childhood there, grammar school, high school and San Jose State. I took a two year prenursing course at San Jose State.
SM: Before you go into the nursing tell me a little bit more about your family. What your father did and your mother, I am going to assume she was probably raising children, but how many people were in the family and....
AU: My father was a nursery man. He raised Chrysanthemums, small and large. The small ones were called pom poms and the large ones were called chrysanthemums. He did that until evacuation occurred and my mother worked right on the farm. It was a 5 acre plot. I have one older brother and two younger sisters. My two younger sisters have been attending Heart Mountain reunions, but I have never been to one yet. It was there you met my younger sister.
SM: And your brother, has he gone to reunions too?
AU: No, because he was not in camp. When we went to Heart Mountain camp he was there for a little while and then he volunteered for the US army and joined the military intelligence. He had not studied the Japanese language before, but he learned in camp in the Intelligence Service. Then he went over seas to the Philippine Islands just about the time the war was over so he didn't have too much active service.
SM: So he was just looking Japanese. Did your parents speak Japanese? AU: Yes
SM: Did you pick up some Japanese too?
AU: Yeah, until kindergarten we spoke I guess, Japanese and then after we entered school we spoke mixed English and Japanese language.
SM: Were there a lot of Japanese American children in school?
AU: I guess I would say quite a few. Most of them were in farming and some were in business, but mostly in farming.
SM: Well your mother, besides raising a good sized family, was also working in farming or in the nursery.
AU: Yes, but in Japan she taught school for ten years and so this was quite a shock to be on a small farm.
SM: She taught school? Now when was that? AU: Before she got married.
SM: Was that a little unusual?
AU: Her sister was also a teacher. No, they had a lot of teachers. SM: Did your parents come from Japan?
AU: Yes
SM: And she had trained there as a teacher and she taught there?
miles from Davis and asked my father to send his picture to her younger sister, my mother and he did so she came over. That is the way most of the Japanese brides came over after seeing a picture of their...
SM: She was a picture bride then?
AU: Yeah so that is called a picture bride, yes. Most of the ladies came over like that and this was about 1919 because my brother was born in January, 1920. I was born December, 1921.
SM: I have read about the picture brides. It was like she was getting old and didn't have a husband and so this was an alternative?
AU: Right, and then she was teaching way up in northern Japan where she wouldn't have met anyone anyway so her sister suggested that she come.
SM: Did she talk about being a picture bride?
AU: Yes, but all the ladies were picture brides at that time. SM: How did they regard that?
AU: You mean in Japan?
SM: No, I mean just themselves being picture brides. What did your mother say oh here she comes over and she meets some, I've heard some stories about when they met their potential husbands they
didn't look like they were supposed to or they, there were a lot of disappointments and it could be very hard.
AU: I guess so, I haven't heard of any bad marriages, but they had no choice but to stay because it was too long a distance to go back. But they all seem to have stuck it out, had families and most of
them died here because the children were all American citizens and spoke English and this was their home country and so they, most of them didn't go back.
SM: Well they were really true pioneer women and brave women to do something like that.
AU: I remember my mother saying that it took two weeks to come over by ship and, of course, they had the cheapest rate, the cheapest passage so they were in the lower berth and she said it was hot and smelly and she was sick the full two weeks.
SM: So you learned English when you went to school and at some point how did you get interested in nursing?
AU: Lets see, I think when I was a girl scout. My father and mother, going backwards, didn't want us to go to a Japanese school. He wanted us to be more Americanized so he encouraged us to join Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts, Campfire, any of those. And all of us took music lessons and we didn't go to Japanese school on Saturdays like most of the people did which I kind of regret, but it's ok. SM: You regret not having more Japanese?
AU: Right, because after the children started growing up I took Japanese here and reading and writing didn't stick because it is something you have to memorize and use all the time.
SM: Very difficult. Yeah, if you had done both, yeah, I had heard that it is a hard language.
AU: Yes it is and my husband went to Japanese school on Saturdays, but he can't remember too much of the reading and writing so I guess it was all right.
SM: That would be a wonderful skill to have though. So you decided to go to nursing school? AU: Yes. I think what sparked my interest was home nursing that we learned in Girl Scouting. My sisters and I were all Girl Scouts and my brother was a Boy Scout. I think I got interested in home nursing from just a short course that we had.
SM: Like going into people's homes and taking care of them?
AU: Yes, the instructor or leader would teach us a little bit about bed making and all that. And I think I got an interest in it at that time.
SM: So how did you pursue that? Did you take special courses in high school?
AU: They didn't have anything special and through high school I didn't know what I wanted to study when I went to college and I just wanted to go to college, but didn't have any, so I was either interested in business or nursing so I chose nursing.
SM: That was more common too for a young woman to be a nurse.
SM: What did they do, your friends?
AU: Lets see, I don't remember what they did.
SM: I just asked because from what I've heard it was mainly education, being teachers or being nurses were their career options at that time that was certainly true when I went to college which was in the 60's, that those were the two main fields. You could do other things, but people didn't think about them very much for women.
AU: I see. I guess I lost track of most of my high school friends. SM: So where did you go to nursing school?
AU: Well I started out at Santa Clara County Hospital after two years of prenursing at the San Jose State and after taking nine months training and having been, I was capped there, and then I had to go into the Internment camp.
SM: So you had two years prenursing which was academic work I assume. And then you were starting on your hospital training and what hospital was that?
AU: I was called Santa Clara County Hospital in San Jose. SM: Was that a three year program then?
AU: Yes
SM: So you took two years of academic work and three more years of hospital work, that was a long program.
AU: I would have taken that...
SM: If you had finished. But what I meant was that that was the way the program was, there were actually five years. Which is quite long compared to a lot of hospital programs that were three years total.
AU: Yeah, like University programs?
SM: Well a lot of diploma programs in hospitals, the whole thing historically has been done in three years. But what each of you have told me that I have talked to in the last couple of days is that you went to two years of prenursing and then you entered this three year program which is quite a long time. You didn't have a university degree, you had a diploma if you finished and of course, you were all interrupted. So what year did you begin, if you had just nine months, did you start in 1941 then?
AU: September 1941. SM: The clinical part?
AU: No, no, excuse me, I graduated high school in '39 and two years at San Jose State, and then I went into...so it must have been September of 1941.
SM: You could probably place it by thinking about when Pearl Harbor happened and that was December of'41. „
AU: So I must have gone in '40. ' SM: You started in September, right? AU: I think so, yeah.
SM: So you were actually more than a year into your nursing when Pearl Harbor happened? AU: Yeah, nine months.
SM: So what did you study and what clinical areas were you working in during that beginning?
AU: Since we had anatomy, physiology, and all that chemistry at San Jose State, in the nursing school it would be medical nursing, surgical nursing and then work on the floor too at the same time,
pediatrics.
SM: So you had mainly finished the medical surgical? AU: Yes
SM: I was just asking because each of you had a little bit different organization of what you were doing clinically. Do you remember when Pearl Harbor happened and what you were doing and how you reacted?
AU: We were in the nursing home, all the student nurses, and I remember being called. I don't remember exactly how it happened but all the other student nurses were on the floor working, training, and I remember packing and just leaving and my roommate was also a Japanese American and there was another Japanese American and that was it, we didn't have time to say good-bye or anything to anybody.
SM: You left immediately? AU: Umhmm
SM: Who told you you had to leave?
AU: I don't remember that. Some teacher or....I don't remember the details. SM: But you think that happened right away after Pearl Harbor?
AU: Yes, it was, lets see, I'm not too sure about dates and things. I don't remember exactly what month that happened.
SM: Ok, so it might have been a little bit later. The reason that I asked is because the other two Marys that I talked to, there was a little time that went by before they actually left and I had also asked them the same thing and they talked about the director telling them they couldn't stay in school.
AU: I guess it was a director, I'm not sure. Actually, Mary was one year ahead of me at San Jose College.
SM: Who was that?
AU: Hidaka, the one in San Jose. I haven't seen her since.
SM: And so you didn't get to say good-bye to your friends or classmates. You were living in the nurses residence at that time? Did they know what had happened to you?
AU: I don't think so. This came about two years ago, they had a 50th reunion of the class that I started with and they invited the three Japanese American student nurses, but one had died a couple years ago. My roommate and I went. It was very nice and I heard some of them say.... all of a sudden she says "the news about Pearl Harbor came and all of a sudden they couldn't find the three Japanese American student nurses" so they didn't know why or anything at that time. SM: That is kind of amazing. Did they figure it out ever?
AU: I don't know.
SM: Did they ask you what happened then at the reunion?
AU: I think they found out later, you know, why and where we were being sent I guess.
SM: So then when you had to leave, your family left right? Were they still at Mountain View? AU: Yes, they were still there.
SM: And Mountain View is a little ways from Santa Clara County, it's a little bit north isn't it? AU: No, it is in Santa Clara County. It's between Palo Alto and San Jose.
SM: So what did you do, did you go home?
AU: Yeah and that I don't remember. Because I don't think we had too much time, I don't know how many weeks or months before we all had to move. I guess maybe I was unhappy and decided not to think about it, I don't remember.
SM: Do you remember your reactions to having to leave school?
AU: I was ashamed I think more than and hurt that the government would do this to citizens and yet, if my parents who were immigrants had to go we would have gone too I'm sure, you know, we
wouldn't have let them go by themselves.
SM: So even if Americans didn't need to go you still would have made that choice rather than have them go by themselves?
AU: Right
SM: So you and your two sisters and your parents went together. AU: Yeah, I think my brother went with us too.
SM: Originally he went and then he left for the military. AU: Yeah he left from camp.
SM: So which assembly center did you go to?
AU: We went to Santa Anita and that was a degrading place because it is a race track and I don't know how you describe these horse stalls. There is a folding window where the horse eats.
SM: Yeah the dutch door.
AU: I that what you call it dutch door? SM: Yeah
AU: Where the top opens and the bottom opens? SM: Uhuh
front part and what was degrading was horses hair was stuck on the walls. There were dirt floors and of course, it was for horses.
SM: Other women have told me about that. Some of them were in the stalls and some of them were in the regular barracks, but the stalls had been painted over and there was still manure on the walls though, it had just been whitewashed.
AU: Oh maybe whitewashed, I don't remember that.
SM: Somebody told me about, they had gotten in a jockey room which was actually pretty nice because it was all paneled. Of course there weren't very many of those. Were you in the horse stalls the
whole time then?
AU: The whole time, yes, three months, June, July, August, 1942. SM: You probably did a lot of cleaning.
AU: No, I don't remember that, but I applied at the hospital and until I was accepted over there, we were weaving camouflage nets.
SM: Oh, you were doing that?
AU: Yes, for summer it was brown. For winter brown and green and for winter it was, wait a minute, anyway, it was green for summer and brown for fall, that's the way it was.
SM: And you got paid to do that?
AU: Yes, I think $6.00 a month or something. Anyway, it was very dusty so we were all wearing masks and hair coverings.
SM: Why did you do that instead of working at the hospital right away?
AU: Since we were student nurses they were hiring only the professional nurses I guess. SM: That's interesting to me because I had the sense that there really weren't that many health personnel, that they really needed people to work and with the amount of training and education you had had....
AU: Nine months is really not very much.
SM: Well you had had two years of prenursing, and you had had like a year of nursing at the time. AU: Yeah, but that really wasn't enough I guess and maybe they had enough older more experienced help.
SM: Did you go then to the hospital to work? AU: Yes
SM: First of all when did you go to Santa Anita, do you remember what month that was? AU: I think it was June 1942 (left nursing school(May 26, 1942)
SM: April, you were probably among the first peopIe then that went. Maybe late April, because a lot of people remember memorial day and around that time and some people have said April, but I think it probably would have been pretty late in April, but obviously I don't know. If Pearl Harbor
happened in December and you went late in the spring, April or May, you probably were at home for awhile then weren't you?
AU: I guess. I don't remember being home.
SM: Do you remember taking the train or a bus down to Santa Anita, how you got down there?
AU: Let's see, I don't remember how we got to, it must have been by train to Santa Anita and then from Santa Anita to Wyoming I know there was a train because being a student nurse or nurse, they
gave us a special, what you say, they let us sit in one section and I guess we ate better food, you know, that sort of thing.
SM: Oh, that is interesting. Did you go early as a student nurse to Heart Mountain like in August? AU: No, we all went together, the family.
SM: Oh, you went with your family? Well do you know when your family went to Heart Mountain? AU: If you'll turn that off I'll go look at my...
SM: So you have notes on your dates, what are they?
AU: We went to Santa Anita in April, but I don't have a day and we left September, 1942.
SM: Ok, that makes sense. People that were student nurses or nurses or doctors went earlier. We can talk about that a little bit later, but what block were you in when your family got there?
AU: To Wyoming? SM: Yeah
SM: Ok, because people have kind of told me that. Some of them with their families kind of near the hospital because they were going to be working there.
AU: I was close to the hospital. There was a big field between our barrack and the hospital. SM: Ok, well back to Santa Anita then, you said you did work at the hospital.
AU: But I don't remember what I did. I remember good food compared to the food that we were eating before, the food was much better at the hospital for the nurses.
SM: Oh than in the mess halls? AU: Yes
SM: So do you know when you started working at the hospital and how long you actually worked at the Santa Anita hospital?
AU: I don't remember how long, or what I did.
SM: Was it predominately Japanese working, do you remember working with Caucasians also? AU: No, I don't remember seeing any Caucasians.
SM: You don't remember any Caucasians at all. What kind of patients did you take care of? AU: It's all so vague. I can't remember what kind of work I did. I might have been on call or something, because I remember sleeping in a nice bed.
SM: Oh, you had a nice bed? That was a relief from the horse stall. You mean there was a place right near the hospital where you could sleep?
AU: Umhmm, but I don't know why, unless I was on call why I would have been sleeping over there. SM: Did you do any obstetrics work at all?
AU: No
SM: You were doing more medical? AU: I guess medical, yeah.
SM: Did they do surgery also?
AU: I'm sure they did but I didn't get near there.
SM: Do you remember the doctors that were at Santa Anita? AU: No, not really.
SM: Ok, so that is probably a little bit vague. AU: Very vague.
SM: Do you know what you got paid? AU: No
SM: You said $8.00 for the nets.
AU: Less than $8.00,1 think $6 or maybe ....
SM: Oh, $6. I wonder if you got more when you went to the hospital. Seems like you should have. AU: Probably, yeah.
SM: So in the meantime, were the other members of your family working too?
AU: I don't think so. I think we might have gone in early or late, I'm not sure, according to the dates, but no there weren't too many jobs, there were a lot of people.
SM: And a lot of people wanted them and there weren't very many? AU: Uhuh
SM: Let's go to the train ride to Heart Mountain and what happened when you got there.
AU: So after we got settled I must have applied to the hospital and they called and I started working and this I'm not sure of either. I spent some time in the operating room as a surgical nurse and then
some time in the medical ward #8 and I don't know which came first. I think the surgery came first. And there was a Caucasian nurse by the name of Mrs. Harvey and she was very nice and helpful and we did operations, but I don't remember ever hearing them say we don't have this or we don't have that. Apparently we had all the equipment that we needed.
SM: The kind of operations would they be like? AU: I think appendicitis and that sort of thing.
SM: Kind of routine, nothing too .... Did you remember if there were surgeries that were referred to the Cody hospital or (?)
AU: No, I don't know.
SM: So Mrs. Harvey was the Caucasian in charge of the surgical area? AU: Just the operating room.
SM: I am interested in what that was like, working with the Caucasian nurses and there was one Caucasian doctor over all and how the Japanese nurses and doctors felt about that, being supervised.
AU: I didn't feel a thing since I was used to Caucasian people.
SM: That's true, in your training that would have been the same situation. The reason I asked is
because there were some incidents in the hospital now and then where there were a few strikes and I think it may have been especially the Japanese doctors that were supervised.
AU: By Caucasian doctors?
SM: Well there was a Caucasian doctor that was over the whole hospital and then there was also the Caucasian chief nurse and they had to answer to the chief nurse too. Do you remember who that chief nurse was?
AU: Umhmm, I remember seeing a couple of Caucasian nurses besides Mrs. Harvey, but never talked to them and I never met or seen a Caucasian doctor. There were some?
SM: Well my understanding is there was a Caucasian doctor that was the chief medical officer. They weren't actually working in the hospital giving the care, I mean that was Japanese doctors and nurses and, of course, it was the same, the Caucasian nurses, especially toward the end they had to do more care because so many of the Japanese were leaving camp. But generally they tended to be the supervisors of everyone, so that is why I was curious about if you remembered that because I have talked to one nurse's aide that said that she resisted some of it. She got mad sometimes about the way she was treated. She was 18 and Japanese and she was Japanese American, but she didn't like it. She spoke right up so I was curious if there were some memories of the feelings of being in that hospital working for such low wages.
AU: No, 1 think everybody was happy to be working. SM: What was your work schedule like?
AU: Let's see, I was in charge of this medical ward. One division was for all men and one for all women and I remember working days, I don't ever remember working evenings or nights. SM: You think you worked days most of the time?
AU: Umhmm and I don't remember who was in charge of me, because I don't remember anybody. SM: Can you tell me what some of the routine was like at the hospital?
AU: Our nurses aides did all of the patient care and I was giving medication and treatment, made rounds with the doctors, they were all Japanese doctors.
SM: Did you supervise the nurses aides then, what was your job if the aides were doing all of that?
AU: Yeah, I guess I was supervising them, but there must have been somebody above me, but I don't remember who.
SM: Maybe a Japanese RN? AU: Maybe
SM: Do you remember any of the Japanese registered nurses?
AU: Not really. I remember there was one by the name of Nakano. I think she was in charge of the surgical division. That's where Mary Takagi was, in ward 6. Mary Hidaki, I don't remember where she was.
SM: In the obstetric unit the main Japanese nurse that was mentioned was Hanafusa (last name). AU: I remember the name. And I know she was an older lady but she was in obstetrics?
SM: She worked in apparently obstetrics about the whole time Heart Mountain was open and I saw her name on some of the obstetric records where she gave the ether to the mothers and a number of the women that I have talked to mentioned her. Apparently she was really a good nurse and people remembered her very kindly.
AU: I think most of the RNs came from Oregon or Washington didn't they? SM: Oh they did?
AU: Seems like, maybe that's why I didn't know them and never had any contact with them.
SM: I wonder why they would be more from the Washington area? That's interesting. So you were in the medical ward. Do you remember what number that was?
AU: Ward 8.
SM: So you did that the whole time you were there?
AU: I think so when I wasn't in the operating room and I don't remember how long I worked there. SM: Did they do any special training when you got there or did they just throw you in and say work? AU: Yes, oh we just followed the doctors' orders and that's all, you know.
AU: Yes nine months, that's really not enough, but I guess they were short of....
SM: But a lot more than the aides had had. It's interesting that the aides even passed medications. AU: No they didn't.
SM: Well didn't you just say that, I thought you said the nurse aides did? AU: No, I did. They did all the....
SM: I think there were instances where the nurse's aides did do some medications, but again I wonder if that was more when the students were leaving and going back to school and they needed the
personnel at the hospital. When did you leave?
AU: I left Heart Mountain in August '42, oh excuse me, I entered '42, and I left June '43. SM: 1945?
AU: No, that's when, '43. Because in June '43 I went to Minnesota. SM: Ok so that would mean you were there about nine or ten months. AU: That's right.
SM: Well tell me about, I'm interested in because that is what all three of you have told me that you left sometime between January and June of 1943 so you weren't there a long time. How did you
manage to find another school?
AU: That I'm not sure of either, but I think I applied to two or three schools and the one in Rochester, Minnesota accepted me.
SM: How did you find out about those schools?
AU: I don't know, we must have had a list. I'm not sure.
SM: So you started writing to nursing programs. Do you remember the others that you wrote to besides Minnesota?
AU: No, I don't, but I was one of the first to be accepted there—Japanese American. SM: That was a good school to go to.
AU: Umhmm, it was good, the training was very good.
SM: So what happened, you left Heart Mountain, and before you do that, tell me a little bit about what you did at Heart Mountain and how it was living there. Because you know, you told me a little bit about working in the hospital.
AU: My time was spent working or sleeping. I didn't associate with the community or any of their activities. So I don't know. I remember going to the canteen a couple of times to buy some snack and things like that.
SM: How come you didn't associate with the community? AU: Anti social I guess.
SM: You don't tend to spend a lot of time with other people?
AU: Especially under those conditions. I guess I wasn't interested and working all day I didn't have time to do any of the things that the others were doing.
SM: How does it feel to you being in the camp?
AU: I felt cramped and unable to leave because of the barbed wire. Many of the other people like the men, young men, went out to work, sugar beets and things like that, but women and children had no reason to be going out so we were all confined. We felt confined anyway.
SM: That is very interesting to me that so many of the men did go out and came and went and most of the women I have talked to who had young children might have, at the most, been out once or twice the whole time and they might have taken a trip to Powell or Cody or Yellowstone Park. AU: To shop or?
SM: Well just for a little day trip. AU: Mmmm that was nice.
SM: But that was later, quite a bit later too. So what you're saying is, I mean there were differences in "freedom" which obviously was not really freedom, but men did have a little more mobility and could leave the camp more than women.
AU: I'm sure they were guarded you know with military police or some people like that, but they were able to work and earn.
SM: You didn't know your husband at that time?
AU: Yes, we grew up together more or less, during the high school years and college. He also went to college there in San Jose. And we went to the same Japanese American Christian church.
SM: Was he in Heart Mountain also?
AU: No, he didn't have to go to camp because he had a sister who was living in Colorado, Denver, Colorado, and any family who had a sponsor or a job or school didn't have to go to the camp, so his family didn't go at all.
SM: That is the first I've heard of somebody that managed to leave from further mass evacuation. He must have left early after Pearl Harbor.
AU: Not really. Until two months after the evacuation order were declared, you could go to Visalia. It was an unrestricted area and that part of California you could go to so that is what his family did.
They had some friends there and they stayed there for a couple months until they were told that was restricted. Then they went to Colorado.
SM: I talked to one woman that their family also did that. But then eventually that didn't work either, they were still evacuated.
AU: So they went to camp?
SM: Yeah, they did, they tried to move more inland and it wasn't far enough so they still ended up. In fact, I think she said they had a plan that everybody get a big tract and relocate somewhere in Oklahoma or somewhere, but they never made it that far.
AU: Unless you had a sponsor you couldn't just go.
SM: You had to have a sponsor, that's interesting. So you went to camp and you basically either stayed close to your barracks and your family or you were working. And that was from August until June, so that was about 9 months you did that.
AU: 10 months, September '42 - June '43, and I remember working some evenings too. Maybe it was an emergency. I remember an ambulance driver coming after me so it must have been a surgical emergency when I was working in the operating room.
SM: Do you remember some of the doctors or other nurses you worked with?
AU: I remember one doctor who was very nice, his name was Hanaoka. He is a 7th Day Adventist. SM: And he was a general physician?
AU: Yes
SM: I think he delivered babies too.
AU: Oh maybe. I think he probably did everything. SM: Didn't most of the Japanese doctors do everything? AU: Yes I think so.
SM: They were general practitioners? AU: Yeah, umhmm
SM: So who else do you remember?
AU: Well, there was one from San Jose, but I don't remember his name even. SM: A physician?
AU: Yes.
SM: And did you become friends with the other student nurses? AU: Not too much. I guess I was anti social.
SM: What did you, Mary was there so were you friends? I mean were you friends with? AU: Mary, which one, Takagi?
SM: Yeah
AU: I guess I met Mary Takagi in camp and we might have just talked a little. We never did anything off duty. And Mary Hidaka, I remember her from Santa Clara County Hospital and she was one year ahead of me, but I don't remember that she went to Heart Mountain. I don't remember her being there.
SM: So when you applied to schools to leave, did you have to get special permission?
AU: I think so, everybody leaving had to go to this special department, I don't know what it was called now, and sign papers and after getting an acceptance from a school they let me go. The same thing happened to my two younger sisters. They went to Boston and they went through the Quaker
American Friends. They helped them find schools.
SM: I heard about that yesterday about the friends helping. Did they help you at all?
AU: Not me personally, but my two sisters went to school. They were very lucky to go to the good schools.
SM: So did you do it by yourself? Figuring out to go to Minnesota and you did all that on your own? AU: I guess so, yes.
SM: Well that was really gutsy.
AU: Yeah, and I don't remember if I went by bus, I'm sure I didn't go by plane. I don't remember. SM: How did your family feel about your taking off by yourself then?
AU: They thought it was good that I was going to continue my education. SM: They wanted you to do that?
AU: Yeah and my two younger sisters too, they went.
SM: So you don't remember exactly how you got there?
AU: No, I don't, but I remember that I didn't have much money, but in nursing school you don't really need much money because the hospital feeds you. But we had a good American friend in Mountain View, she sent me $10 every month and that was very nice.
SM: She sent that to you in nursing school to help you? That was a lot of money wasn't it?
AU: I think so at that time. Even so I remember not having enough money for a post card that was 1 cent at that time to write home to ask for more money.
SM: Because you had to buy your own books, was that it?
AU: No I don't think so, just incidentals and things like shoes, (side one of tape ended here)
SM: Tell me about the rest of your education there, how long it took and how they responded to you when you came because I understand not all nursing schools accepted Japanese American students. AU: Probably not, but this being Minnesota I guess they hadn't seen too many Japanese American people and I remember one patient that I was taking care of asked if I was Finnish because they heard my name and they had never seen a Japanese American I guess.
SM: They asked if you were Finnish? AU: Yes
SM: That's interesting.
AU: There weren't too many up in the Minnesota/Wisconsin area. SM: So how did they react to you?
AU: Fine
SM: You didn't feel anything special as far as being discriminated against? AU: I didn't feel any discrimination there.
SM: Had you felt that when you were back in Santa Clara County from either patients or classmates? AU: No, I didn't feel any discrimination.
SM: I've heard different stories from people about that, you know some felt they had experienced it all their lives in one form or another, racism, and I wonder, now you were in a community growing up that there were a lot of Japanese in the community as well as Caucasian both? And you were just used to being together?
AU: We didn't associate too much with the Japanese and maybe that is why we didn't feel the
discrimination if there was any. This very good friend whom I told you sent me $10 every month, she was a very good Christian, she and her husband and her husband founded a Christian church for the Spanish people and the wife founded one for the Japanese people and that is the one my
husband and I went to and they did a lot for our family, especially for us I think. She gave piano lessons to all of us and violin lessons to my brother and then when he became interested in voice lessons she helped him go to San Francisco to take lessons. Anyway, she was a very special person.
SM: Oh that's wonderful. That made a big difference didn't it?
AU: Yeah, and that is why one of our daughters is named after her. Her name is Margerie, but she spells it Margerie so my daughter does the same.
SM: That is a great tribute to name a child after someone like that. So tell me some about nursing school in Minnesota. How long you went and what you studied.
AU: Let's see, I had been capped in San Jose, in Santa Clara County and until they could get my records from Santa Clara County I had to be on probation. So after six months (June 29, 1943 - December 2, 1945) I was capped again. I think I can say I am the only one who has been capped twice.
Clara County and that is why I was able to finish in December of '45 instead of '46. But it took them a long time to decide how many months to give me credit for.
SM: Well that's interesting because I've heard several different arrangements about credit and how much time it took.
AU: Did other girls get credit for it?
SM: Well, it was different for both of the Mary's. One had to go two full years more and one went several different places and finally finished in California.
AU: Went to a nursing school elsewhere and then finished in California?
SM: Yeah, one of the Marys did that and the other finished at Pennsylvania. So it is kind of interesting it sounds like each school had to figure out what to give you credit for, how much more time you needed to put in to finish. So you finished in December '45 and that was right when the camps had all been evacuated totally, when they were closed down, that fall of '45.
AU: That's right. My father and mother stayed until the very end because they had leased their farm to some workers and they didn't want to chase them out until they finished harvesting whatever they were doing. But they didn't seem to mind. In fact, my mother said being in camp was a very restful place for her because all the time since she came to America she had been working in the fields and in camp she was able to study English and she became a citizen after taking an
examination. She learned how to embroider something special and I don't know what all. She
took many classes like that a lot of other ladies did too and like I say, it was a change from working in the field. My father got a job cleaning latrines, but he didn't seem to mind because it was extra income.
SM: I keep puzzling over this when people say there were some good things about camp. Some people liked being there, some people hated it. In the clutches like with your mother, is it worth the price of freedom in a democratic society to be able to learn to sew and not work as hard? I mean, I don't quite know what to do with that and I suppose people who were in camp must have had
discussions about it, but it seems like a lot of people were given some new opportunities, but at the same time everybody lost their freedom and to me I can't make sense out of that. And I can't
because I wasn't there, but what that must mean for a whole people to lose their freedom. How about you, what is your perspective on that?
AU: Yeah, I think I was numb the full time I was there. SM: The whole time?
AU: Yes, because I just took it I don't know, worked and slept and that was it.
SM: That's an interesting way of putting it as being numb. When you are numb you don't feel anything. AU: Right, no anger, no happiness.
SM: Just nothing, just do what you have to do? Did that change after you left? AU: Oh yes
SM: Some of your feelings? AU: Right, yes
SM: Tell me about that.
AU: Being able to continue and being able to feel freedom again, yeah, that was wonderful.
SM: When you look back on that time in Heart Mountain, are you feeling different now, I mean, you were numb when you were there and that was probably protecting you in some ways, but then as you look back do you have different kinds of feelings about it?
AU: No, I think I just pushed it into the back of my mind because I don't remember very much of anything. In fact I remember in Santa Anita they gave us a catalog and said, "you are allowed to order (I don't know how much money) merchandise," but I had no interest. My mother or sisters filled out whatever they thought I would need.
SM: You didn't want to have anything to do with it?
AU: No, so they did it for me, 1 don't even remember what they ordered.
SM: Well, you were a young woman, you were just getting launched in your own life and your own career and then had it abruptly stopped. Seems like a pretty normal reaction to me. What
happened then when you finished at Minnesota with your nursing? AU: I spent a lot of my time after I graduated in the operating room. SM: That's the area you really liked?
AU: Yes, and I was at Mayo, the doctors came and we had EMT section, Radiology section and Eye section and Dental section, so I was working as head nurse in all of those and then I decided I wanted to go into anesthesia. For one thing, I wanted to sit down and work because I was having trouble with varicose veins. That is one of the reasons I wanted to go into anesthesia and I liked the quiet atmosphere of the operating room and they had anesthesia training at Mayo, but it wasn't accredited so I decided to go elsewhere. But they said to go into anesthesia I would have to have an extra year of work in the operating room, so I came back to San Francisco and worked at Stanford University Hospital for one year and then I applied to Cleveland University Hospital's
School of Anesthesia and I was accepted there. That was a one year course, so I went there for one year, came back to San Francisco and worked at St. Francis Hospital in the Anesthesia
department for one year. Not quite one year, because my husband and I decided to get married and if I had stayed completely one year, I think I was lacking two or three weeks, but since he was a student I decided we should get married before school started, so I didn't get my two weeks vacation from St. Francis.
SM: Was that a nurse anesthetist program?
AU: Yes, you mean in Cleveland? At St. Francis they were hiring only, I mean they didn't have any anesthesiologists at that time. They were all nurses.
SM: I see
AU: So after we got married, my husband was still in school so I had to find, I wanted to work and there were no hospitals in Davis, so I had to choose between Woodland or Sacramento so I chose Sacramento and I worked there four years until he got his Ph.D. then I quit and started raising a family.
SM: During those four years were you doing surgery? AU: Yes
SM: Were you doing any anesthesia? AU: Only anesthesia, as a nurse anesthetist.
SM: You must have been kind of an unusual person doing that, because there weren't that many nurse anesthetists were there?
AU: There were only nurse anesthetists, there weren't any medical men. SM: There were no anesthesiologists?
AU: No, about the time when I was getting ready to quit, anesthesiologists were coming in. That was 1953.
SM: Oh, that is interesting, I didn't know that, so the nurses did the anesthesia, not doctors? AU: Right
SM: I can remember in the 60s nurses doing the anesthesia for births, for delivery. You must have done that too.
AU: Yes we did.
SM: All the mothers were knocked out with ether.
AU: Well, no we used mostly nitrous and oxygen combination and some ether. SM: Laughing gas kind of?
AU: Right. About in the early 50s there was a group of three anesthesiologists who were in private practice and if the doctors had a special surgery sometimes they would call one of them. Otherwise with just regular surgery the nurses did it all.
SM: That's really interesting. It's apiece of history I didn't really know. So when the doctors started doing anesthesia did that displace a lot of nurses?
AU: Not displaced, but they were doing more of the minor things like obstetrics or smaller operations. SM: Uhuh, and then the doctors would do the?
AU: The heart and the difficult operations.
SM: So when your husband finished his doctorate and you started raising a family, did you keep working some of the time?
here on campus and that didn't work out too well because I could hear the children laughing and playing and talking so I wasn't getting too much sleep.
SM: You weren't getting too much sleep so that would be hard. And I wonder, did you miss anesthesia?
AU: Not really. It was stressful for me and difficult work.
SM: Well there is a lot of action involved and you have to be very quick. Did you work in nursing after your children were grown?
AU: No, not really, I took a part time job once when the children were in Jr. High, but I didn't work too long. My legs started to bother me, all that walking.
SM: Are you glad that you went through nursing school and did that kind of work?
AU: Yeah, I think it helped raising a family even, you would know when to call a doctor and when not to bother them.
SM: How many children do you have? AU: We have four. Two boys and two girls. SM: I notice some of your wedding pictures here.
AU: Yes, we take an annual family photo and put it in a Christmas card. SM: Have you gone back to any of the Heart Mountain reunions?
AU: I have never attended a Heart Mountain reunion. I did attend the 25th (1970) and 50th (1995) reunions of my Rochester, MN classes. The 50th was the big one and they are talking about everybody meeting again for the 75th.
SM: Have you kept any photos or anything from Heart Mountain or the camp, of you as a nurse or pictures of—nothing, given what you've told me I suspect you probably wouldn't want—any letters that you might have written or communication like to your friend that was helping you? Did you ever write to her?
AU: I used to write to her, but I didn't save any of her correspondence.
SM: Uhuh, because that kind of information is very interesting because when you are trying to remember something that happened so long ago some of it just, you know, you forget it or it gets changed a little bit as far as what you remember and so personal letters and stuff like that, actually I did find some letters that were in the Stanford-Hoover collection written from Heart Mountain and it was very interesting to read them, because the letters were really very close to what the women told me, which is kind of what I wanted to find out. Although that was just one person's writing, but if the letters that were written then are fairly consistent with what the women are telling me now, then that is very helpful. It gives me a sense that the memories are accurate because, you know, story telling and memories change. One of the things I am kind of curious about is because many of you haven't talked about it and haven't wanted to talk about it, a lot of times the stories change with the telling as you talk about it to each other and if nobody talked about it very much it seems like they weren't influenced a lot by different people's recollections. When I talked to your sister-in-law on the phone, she didn't know what camp you had gone to.
AU: My sister-in-law, the one in Davis? SM: Yeah
AU: No probably not.
SM: And I thought that was very interesting that you are family members, and she said your ages are spread apart, but I said well, "were you in the same camp" and she didn't know what camp you were in.
AU: We don't talk about what camp you were in. SM: So you don't even talk about it that much?
AU: No I don't even know, do you know what camp she was in?
SM: No, I would have to go back and look at my notes, but I think I was struck more by the fact that if your family members don't even know what camp you were in you really haven't even talked about camp within your own family.
AU: Yeah, that's right. I remember our children saying "how come we don't know about your being in camp and how come they don't talk about it in school or in the books?" and I said we don't talk
about it because for one thing they didn't ask. But then if they didn't know about it how could they ask? But every year we used to go to national meeting that my husband belonged to, the Horticulture Society and then one year we went beyond Minnesota and on the way back we stopped at Heart Mountain. We wanted to show them where it was and there was a nice big plaque and you could see where the barracks were and the ground was still white where the barracks were sitting and I think the only thing left of the hospital was the chimney.
SM: How did you feel seeing that?
AU: I don't know, I don't know how I felt.
SM: I was just curious because of kind of coming back and seeing the big hospital chimney and that wide open space and Heart Mountain in the back, I would think it would have evoked—sometimes when you are back in a situation it brings back some of the memories that you may have kind of forgotten.
SM: So you showed your children where you were and did you talk about it more with them then? AU: A little. Yeah, they seemed a little bit interested.
SM: So, I have asked this of some of the people just because it is interesting, but what did you do with the redress money?
AU: Oh, I remember, we gave each of the children a little some and like $1,000 each and put the rest in the bank. What did the others do?
SM: Well you know I had some women say that everybody bought new cars. It's a right amount for a car and help pay a child's college tuition. And I haven't asked everyone, some people just talked about it and it is just kind of interesting. I mean it is such a small amount of money, but it still represented something important to you didn't it?
AU: Yes, and even though my husband didn't go to camp he was awarded $20,000 too because he was evacuated from his home. And while they were in Colorado some people were living in the house, I think, anyway part of it burned down. I mean the fire department caught it before it burned completely so he and his father came out earlier than the rest of the family and rebuilt the burned part.
SM: When you look back on all this. This episode in your life at a very important age for a young woman, do you think that impacted who you are or how your life unfolded? Did it make it different to you?
AU: I suppose. It probably made me a stronger person than I was before. I was shy and not very outgoing and I am more so now, more sociable.
SM: Well if you went out, left your family, went all the way to Minnesota, were alone there going to school, that must have really forced some new behaviors.
AU: I guess, but before the war even, my parents were hard-up financially and I remember going to work even when going to San Jose State. I took a job in a home and one of the homes was my friend, her name was Marjerie and they called it a school job. You help in the house, some cooking, some cleaning, and then went to school and then helped after school and you got a room besides. So I had been away from home anyway, even before evacuation so being away from the family didn't really bother me that much.
SM: Well is there anything else that maybe I haven't covered or that you remember in particular that seemed important during that time?
AU: No
SM: Did that affect your feelings toward Caucasians or towards the country that that happened? AU: No, I just felt that it was war hysteria and that the government had to do something to appease the public.
SM: It was appeasing the public, is that what it seemed like?
AU: Yes I think so because they were up from what I had heard. Some were protesting and some were being discriminating and causing problems.
SM: You have been in Davis here for a long time. Have people been interested or asked you? AU: You know, that is surprising. Many people don't even know about it. Even Californians. SM: It's not surprising to me from everything I've heard.
AU: Right, and then people who were of the age when it happened, about my age, they don't ask too
many questions. Maybe they feel that I would feel hurt or something so they don't ask too many questions. All they say is were you in an evacuation camp and I say yes and then they will say it was an unfortunate thing, that's about all they say, they don't ask questions.
SM: Everybody is quiet about it. AU: Yes
SM: Well my students, most of them don't know too much about it either. I usually ask my classes if they have heard about it. Most of the students are from Wyoming and maybe a third will have had
feel some indignation that somehow they didn't learn about this in history. Maybe they did and they don't remember, but I very often hear them say "why doesn't anybody tell us about this" "the history books need to include this" and it is interesting. These are college age students. There still
is an appalling lack of ignorance and I think that is one reason it is really good the Japanese American Museum is in existence.
AU: Umhmm, but I wonder how many Caucasians will go to see it.
SM: Well thank you for your time and for sharing your story and I think it will give a little piece of history at least to the Japanese American student nurses and what happened to them and I am going to include that if I write at least that little episode. It wasn't little in your life, but it is an important part of nursing history that needs to be told about so I will be doing that.
AU: My roommate, as soon as evacuation occurred got married and moved to Arkansas or someplace, so she never went to camp. She was a student nurse, but she didn't finish so when evacuation
came she quit nursing altogether.
SM: So she quit. Did she go to Heart Mountain too or another camp.
AU: She might have gone to Heart Mountain because she was living in the San Jose area. SM: I see and did she work in the hospital do you know?
AU: No
SM: She did not. She just quit. See that is interesting to me because the three of you that I have talked to all went on and got your nursing education completed, but I wonder how many, like your
roommate at that point stopped and never went on. Do you have any idea about that? AU: No
SM: Because it seems like all three of you were very determined and you left camp soon and you got going right away to find out how you could get into school and you started applying and that took a lot of initiative when you were in these terrible conditions to decide you were going to go on to school and apply and get up and leave and leave your families during war time. I think that is really quite amazing and I wonder how many didn't do that.
AU: I don't know.
SM: I don't know either and I'm not sure how to find out, but that's...
AU: The third girl who was at Santa Clara County and in my class finished after she went to camp. SM: I don't suppose there would be any good record of that anywhere. I mean I don't know how I would really find that out. Well thank you, it has been very interesting and I appreciate your time. AU: I'm sorry if my memory is so poor.
SM: Everybody finishes saying that. It has been very helpful and when I get all of the material together at least there will be a small picture of what happened to some people and obviously, unless I talk to every student nurse Japanese American in school I won't get the total picture, but it still gives a little glimpse at what might have happened to some of the other student nurses at that time.
AU: If there is a list of different schools having student nurses it would be easier to find out.
SM: But you would have to somehow figure out who were Japanese. But you might be able to figure out from the names, but that would be a major detective. Given all the nursing schools and trying to find, I mean, that's old information if the schools would even keep that. I went to the national archives in Washington to try and read a lot of the material from the camps, well from Heart Mountain, and a lot of that material has been destroyed too because there is just too many records. But you'll be interested in this, I did find in some of the notes from the nursing meetings at Heart Mountain and they were talking about things like supplies and equipment, the normal things that go into a staff meeting.
SM: I was just thinking, there was some Japanese names, but of course you all were unmarried at that time so I would have to know your maiden names and I have some of those. But there were more Caucasian meetings and then sometimes there would be references to Japanese names for
something or another, and I don't have all the meeting notes either, but I have some of them that I copied down, especially for the obstetrics. And they are there, so that is interesting and they are not published or anything, they are just the copies of the meeting notes. That's all they were. AU: I see.
