Letters to and from Heart Mountain
By Pat Yamamoto | April 9, 2019
Mr. and Mrs. Barnard was a couple “outside”, in San Francisco, with whom my parents corresponded, and got help from, while we were imprisoned in Heart Mountain. Mr. Barnard had done business with my father, who had been a buyer and salesman for Takeuchi Bros., a wholesale fishing tackle establishment. Mr. Barnard was one of his customers, and also a friend. After the war they again did business when my father became a partner in Takeuchi Bros., always maintaining their friendship. Among my parents’ things, discovered several years after they died, were carbon copies of my father’s letters to them and some letters they wrote my parents.
In one of the letters Mrs. Barnard wrote, “how sweet Patsy was” when my father brought us to their store and I ran into her arms and let her carry me around, and how Barney liked my brother because “he was so bright and energetic”. The other pre-war story my brother described to me was that this couple came and laid cash, overflowing, on our piano before we were incarcerated. Our parents did not accept the cash, but always remembered and acknowledged their generosity and support.
These letters included stories of our families, business acquaintances, and business both prior to war and during the war when the Heart Mountain Community Activities Department and Community Enterprise Store bought athletic equipment, evidently fishing supplies, ping pong balls, softball equipment, from Mr. Barnard. My father was Assistant Director of Community Activities. In one letter there was an offer for my father to take over the “tackle business in our store for yourself on any basis you want” when the war is over.
Following our parents’ death in 1995, we found in their storage unit an old, small, well used hot plate, one with coils, you plugged in, put a pot on top and used for heating or cooking. It was thrown out with a lot of their old things. But there was a story behind that hot plate we did not know at the time, which was unraveled through these letters. I remember that hot plate in camp and in the dormitory where we lived after the war when it was used to cook on.
My father, the gentle man I wrote about previously, whom I heard using a swear word only once during my 23 years living with them, and not a complainer, wrote to the Barnards in January 1943 that
“We have been through hell! We were sent to Pomona after being separated from the rest of the San Francisco group then shipped to Wyoming. It is 20 degrees below as I type this letter and the blizzard has banked snow all around our barracks where my family of 5 live together in one room. First it was dust every day and so thick that we could not see the barracks across the street, bad water, food poisoning which wrecked my youngsters’ health to a point that they easily catch cold and lose what little weight they gain between illness. We cannot feed them in the mess halls but must prepare their food at home and they will not return the 450 watt electric baby food heater they took away when we went to Pomona….. I have worked overtime in order to develop my department as my share of the community war efforts, however, the doctor has ordered me to take it easier if I wanted to live. Working was my only salvation in order to retain my sense of humor….. Some day I hope to tell you about what we have gone through and laugh about it in the telling, however, it is not very funny at present. I’ve written about the dark side of things because I became home-sick when I received your letter.”
Other letters transpired in between, then in March 1943, Mrs. Barnard apologized for taking “so long to get the little gifts for the children packed…. I sent Patsy a bear, and bet she will look cute with it.”
April, 1943, my father thanked them for the hot plate we had received from them, along with gifts for us. I remember my parents telling us that they sent us candy and I have a picture of the bear she sent me among the “little” gifts. The panda bear came up above my waist!
If I had known the generosity and concern which that hot plate represented, I would not have thrown it out.
October 1943 my father wrote: “It is over a year now since we left San Francisco and we have become accustomed to the weather……and the youngsters are getting stronger…life is not as hard as it was when we first came. ….Whenever we sit down and talk of the few months prior to evacuation, my wife always recalls the evening you came over to our home with your kind offer. We hope that someday we may be able to reciprocate all the kindnesses you have shown.”
Friendships, sustained, through letters written and received, bringing news and much support when needed.
