Letter to George Sakai, November 9, 1942

A

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leaves are referred to as "temporary" and cannot last for a longer

from the standpoint of Student Relocation in securing your temporary -

pen i Pe: pit Eg ane a EAL iy ee eR FREY RPE a ee OR oe

'

1627 Post Street

San Francisco, California

senirtaaerian 9, 1942

Dear Georges

At long last. here's a letter that nteiareaue should have enn

multiplied a number of times and have arrived much sooner, I pengll

alibi and say that we have been busy, Betty has not been feeling

well, but in reality it's my fault. |

First let's go into this little problem of a temporary `Leiie. :

to interview the dean of the school of dentistry. Kay was a little.

misinformed in that the temporary leave is issued xX EHX by the.

project director, in your case Mr. Ernest. Our understanding of Whe

is that it is entirely his decision if certain forms are filled out.

According to the leave regulations as we have been instructed such |

period than 60 days. If one were to require a permanent leave after

having a temporary leave he would have to put in an additional

request for the permanent leave. I sincerely hope:-that you will be

able to make use centf this opportunity and continue with your dental

training. I am quite certain that there is little that we could do

leave but we would be very glad to cooperate to the fullest in send-

ing transeript of your scholastic record or any other material thot -

we have on hand. We might also be able to give you the names of some -

people in St. Louis who might help you find a place should you secure (c)

the temporary leave. If this does not answer your questions please

write and I promise you I shall anser immedistely. :

Now then, getting down to twther business, I have talked to "r.

Clyde Smith on the phone concerning two crates "that Ayako wrote me

about. We are to pick these up this Wednesday morning and will bring

them here to the house. If you need these materials or any other -

things that you have here, please say so and we will see that they

are sent to you. If the erating or packing is inadequate we will see

that they are adequately crated for shipping.

Now I guess it's about time that we give an accounting of some

of our behaviors in living in your home, A little over two months

have passed by since we have grown in size and been using the second

and third floor. At present, HX there are 16 people on the two floors

We have been XHyenSH thoroughly enjoying our living together and I a4

feel that we hava been taking reasonable care of the property,

There is one place where we have fallen down and that is in the care

of the dwarf plants. I have tried to keep these alive but so far

have been unsuccessful as two of them have died and the third is

well on the way. The rest of the plants are doing very nicely"

On the first fioor there is a Negro family and several Negro

workers who are very quiet and respectable people, The daughter of

the family has been in the hospital and has recently returned and

is recovering from an oper: tion. We have visited them two or three -

times although we do not kno: them very well for the men of the

house work on the s `ing shift and are either at work or "sleep at

the times that we are at home, i

ih intial we sort of make a tour of the house and I will see ar :

i can introduce several of the people to you. Im the small room di-

rectly across from the kitchen on the third floor there is nowy a very

nice girl who is working at the downtown YWCA. She is formerly from |

St. Louis and her mame is Elaine Kore, For a while Caleb Foote occu-

pied thst room. However he is now on tour of the projects and i hope bi

has had an opportunity to talk to you at Topaz. I gave him your - A

address for that purpose. Inithe next room is Dorothy Mitchell, a

girl from Fresno who is working as a stenographer at the | Student

Belecation Council, She has sort of gone overboard for Kenneth

Stevens, also working at Student Relocation Council, who is ie

in the room directly below her on the second floor, Both of these -

kids are swell kids and are thoroughly enjoying their acquaintances

Kenny is a Quaker boy whose parents live in Illinoise aitho he ec me

"to SeF. Just adout the time of the evacuation from the Hawaiian -

Islands. In the next room forward are two girls, Elaine Mikels who

is a student at Cal. and works Saturdays in a gurage parking cars.

She's really a riot as she is about five feet tall and we tease her

about being " "saakar of the teamsters! union. Her home is in Los |.

Angeles and she spent the summer working down in the valley with some

of the migrant people. Her roomemate is Edith Roberts whose father is

a missionary in China and is still in Shanghai. Edith also spent the

summer in the valley, at Tracy, working with migrant and undere _

privileged people. She is a graduate of Wellesley College "nd is a

very accomplished jianist. `t present she works in a. Langendorf bak-

ery in town. For nearly two months she worked with the Ssks Council.

The next room is occupied by Betty and myself while the front room

has been made cos}$ with books and chairs and is sort of a lounging

room for the house. Im the small front room on the righthand side

there is Hope Etephens, a girl from Delaware who spent the summer at

Hidden Villa at the work camp also doing some work with the miger: nt

people near there. She is one of the Quaker group dnd is st present

working in the Chinese Nursery Echool, She is also expecting to be~

come Mrs. Caleb Foote within the next two weeks, a little romance |

that may not necessarily have budded here but we can - definite--

ly say blossomed out heres

Downstairs we have used the back porch and kitchen largely don!

laundry purposes with all of the eatixg being done on the third Fie

The second floor diningroom we have been using as a library. In the

small room adjoining it lives a Quaker girl from Philadelp ie Ellen

Baily, who ilso spent the past summex at the Hidden Villa' "ork Camp.

She is working in a settlement on Telegraph Hill and is quite taleni~+ -

ed in making various handicraft articles. In the room next to her is |

Ken Stevens whom we mentioned before and Bill Stevenson. Bill is ry

workirg at the :K. Council and comes from Los Angeles. He has been

quite active in the F.0.R. and is at present on leave from his draft

board to work with the American Friends Service Committee on a ~-

tenance basis. In the next room there is Ada ond Bill Wardlaw, a

young couple who have been very active in coop work in California. a

They arrived in .F. on their vication about two months ago and were

put to work for the . oRe Council and are still functioning.in that _

capacity. The last person on the third floor is Ruth Sample, also

from down south who has recently arrived and is working " -DeR.

Council but may find some other employment socrse s

This group has been mainly the core of those who have been da

staying in the building. There hewe been a "hunber of others who are

and

i ;

friends and acquaintances that have come for short ssibiate of time,

anywhere from just one meal to a week or so before going on else"

where. During the past two months there has been an F,0.R. conference

as well as a C.P. . conference in this region. On both of these

occasions we have had several guests and in fact at one tiwe we

slept 17 people and had 19 in for dinmere Ali in a.1 we have been

quite amazed at the comparatively reasonable an to live coopera-

tively. We all share in the work of prepuring the food and keept:

the house clean and: have found that we do very nicely on about 25

`per month per pers me I presume that Mr. Zellick hus kept you inform-

ed from that standpoint and that you are aware that we are paying the

bank 60% a month for the two floors. We most sincerely hope that

this financial arrangement is still satisfactory and if uaa have any

suggestions or `desires please indicate them. :

_ fhe furniture is very much the same in its arrangement as at .

was when you left with the major exception the moving of one of the.

kitchen cabinet affairs that was in the second floor front kitchen

to the third floor kitchen and the round table that you had in the

kitchen now . coved into the third floor diningroom so that we use it

as a side table to cuteh the overflow from the big long table with

three leaves in it,

Several of us have been going to the new Booker T. Washington

Center which is a Negro social agency and is now located in the

building that the JACL previously occupied. We hope to further :

develope relationships with these people in ho,es that we will be

better able to understand their many md complex problems, In the

meantime we have been working sround to the point of trying to prow

-@uee a few toys to be distributed to the children on the relocation

}rojects. We are keenly aware that our efforts will be wholly in-

adequate to meet the needs. However we do hope to be able to help .

to give some of the kids a little hii uitnodes We wish we knew of a

more adequate avenue of expression and would be XK very err for

any suggestions you mivht have to make.

My draft status is still unchanged amd still a eunetian wand

I am at present I-A under s;, eal and waiting the decision of the

appeal board as to whether they will grant me the classification of

IV-E or not. I am proceeding along more or less ignoring the situe

ation at present for I find that there is nothing else that I centan deo.

There is one other thing concerning the house that I failed to

mention in the sbove. This is in relation to the basement in which

the printigg presses and materials are stored. I was down there

recently and due to the damp conditions there is a mould thet has

begun to grow on some of the machinery, apparently in the grease that

was used to cover it. I sjoke to Mr. Velliek about this and he ssid

that you had given us permission to use this part of the pro erty and

that it should be cleaned up before it depreciated further. This

prin s to mind another p oblem and thut is to what extent can we move

sone of the other things thet are stored in the basement? Fay we re-

stack some of the furniture ond boxes so that we will have more roo

im the forward part as it will be necessary tc move some of the bed~

springs, etc. before very much can be done. We have not taken any

action in this regard as yet and will wait ness we hear from you |

before proceeding in this direction.

In spite of not having written to you sooner we are always

very keen to hear from you and your letters are possed around so

that all the people in the house have an opportunity to read them.

We are very much interested in the setup on the project and how

things are going there. We are expecting that Caleb Foote will be

back the latter part of this week and we shall hear his side of

the story then. However I am quite sure that it will not be the same

picture that you see while you are sitting there every day having a

much better opportunity to really get the feel of the ;l.ce,

Several of the kids have written suggesting that I might Bey

interested in coming there to help teach in the schools, The answer

is thit I am very much interested and would be glad to come. H.vever

the WRA knows me and knows thit I am a pacifist and due to some uae,

fortunate incidents they have refused to hire hose who are known to

be pacifists. At least that is what they have told me when I in ay

quired and there may easily have been some other reason that they d@-

not wish to divulge, ae

If you will let me know Xyen as soon as you have arranged for a

temporary release and just where your destination ,is I will send you

the names of some people in tht locality that the 8.5. Council may

have on their records. Please give my regards to your mother and

sister and I assure you that I send the warmest greetings from all

the rest of the members of the Sakai House,

Sincerely,