My sister Maggie was in Topaz for less than a month. Shortly after we arrived, she started looking for a job, and when asked, “What do you want to do?” she replied, “I want to get outta here!” She became a live-in nanny in Millard County to a family with two children. She then attended Brigham Young University; but heard from a friend who had resettled in Chicago that there were jobs out there, so she moved to Chicago. Sister Rey soon followed.
When Topaz closed in 1945, my parents, dog Fudge (acquired in camp) and I ended up in Weiser, Idaho, on the Oregon border. This was after a brief stint in Mesa, where my parents worked in an apple shed. There was no reason to return to California–there was nothing left for us there. I went to school in Weiser and graduated from high school in 1952–at which point I joined my sisters in Chicago.
In Chicago I attended secretarial school and worked for a big insurance company. But I was eager to travel and requested a posting in Europe with the US Civil Service–but I was sent to Japan for two years. While I was working in Japan, my sister Rey decided to move to San Francisco. When I came back to the US in 1958, I decided to live in San Francisco, and that’s where I met my husband, Jack Dairiki, in 1963.
In 1971 my dad became ill and was not expected to live much longer. At that point, my mother decided that they would return to the San Francisco Bay Area so they could be buried in the Japanese cemetery in Colma. “If we’re buried in Idaho,” she said, “who’s gonna visit our grave?” I didn’t even know about the custom of ohakamairi (visiting ancestors’ graves), but I realized how important it was for my mother.
I don’t think the camp experience had any impact on my subsequent personal life. In my earlier years I never thought about it. My parents never talked about it, and I didn’t even think to ask. Much later, maybe in my late 40s, I did talk about it with other “campers.” I don’t remember what year it was, but I went to a school reunion in Weiser, Idaho. On the return home, I stopped in Utah to finally visit Topaz. I wanted to put closure to that chapter in my life.
Tears well up as I read your story, Jun-san. I’ve just returned from Topaz, where I went with the Wakasa Memorial Committee to mark the one year since the local museum board dug up and dragged away the Memorial Stone our Issei ancestors had to hide. I, too, seek closure. I think our history being treated with dignity will help.
Thank you, Masako, for your kind words. I did not know there was a Topaz Stories group, but Yae Yedlosky and her family, the Kami’s and we were neighbors in Topaz; Yae told Ann Dion/Ruth Sasaki about my dad’s fish pond. And that’s this story got told.
I really would like to visit Salt Lake and the Topaz exhibit being shown in their State Capitol — but with Covid…….