The sandstorms were so bad. I had to wear my bandana to cover all of my face and tie it at the back of my head. The sand came inside our room, especially by the window sills, an inch thick.
When snow turned to ice, I used to slip while walking to school since the treads from my snow boots had worn out. Ordering new snow boots from a catalog was possible, but not a priority for my parents when there were eight of us children. All of our clothes and shoes were ordered from the Montgomery Ward catalog. When we ordered shoes, my mom would trace my feet on a paper and enclose it together with the order since she wasn’t sure what size I wore. When I got my shoes, it was too narrow and hurt my toes so badly, I threw a tantrum. My father scolded me and said I had to wear them regardless, so I eventually developed a corn on my left little toe. Years later, as an adult, it still bothered me, so I finally had a minor toe surgery to remove a segment of the bone in that toe.
My parents were Manzo and Hatsumi Takeshita, and I was born in 1935, the eighth of nine children. One older brother had died before the War at the age of two. My two eldest brothers, Satoshi Spencer and Yuzuru John, were Kibeis, partly educated in Japan before returning to California in 1940. Before the War we had lived in San Mateo, where my father had a landscaping/gardening business.
My experience is similar in that when our family came back to US, I was put 2yrs back. I had the opportunity to leave high school early to go to college. Our family was in Tule Lake and deported to Japan where I was born.
Thank you for sharing, Henry. I hope you don’t mind if I share a link to your presentation for the San Bruno Public Library on the Day of Remembrance. Your three-part family story was fascinating and very moving: https://youtu.be/eGNyx0TNlOI
Thank you so much Ruth for collecting these wonderful stories! It’s important to understand and remember our collective history as Americans.