Voices from This Long Brown Land Palgrave Studies in Oral History Series Editors: Linda Shopes and Bruce M. Stave Sticking to the Union: An Oral History o/the Life and Times o/julia Ruuttila, by Sandy Polishuk; foreword by Amy Kesselman (2003) To Wear the Dust 0/ war: From Bialystok to Shanghai to the Promised Land, an Oral History, by Samuel Iwry, edited by L. J. H. Kelley (2004) Education as My Agenda: Gertrude Williams, Race, and the Baltimore Public Schools, by Jo Ann O. Robinson (2005) Remembering: Oral History Performance, edited by Della Pollock (2005) Postmemories o/Terror: A New Generation Copes with the Legacy o/the "Dirty war," by Susana Kaiser (2005) Growing Up in The People's Republic: Conversatiom between Two Daughters o/China's Revolution, by Ye Weili and Ma Xiadong (2005) Life and Death in the Delta: African American Narratives o/Violence, Resilience, and Social Change, by Kim Lacy Rogers (2006) Creating Choice: A Community Responds to the Need for Abortion and Birth Control, 1961-1973, by David P. Cline (2006) Voices from This Long Brown Land: Oral Recollections o/Owens Valley Lives and Manzanar Pasts, by Jane Wehrey (2006) Radicals, Rhetoric, and the war: The University 0/ Nevada in the wake 0/K ent State, by Brad Lucas (forthcoming) Sisters in the Brotherhoods: Organizingfor Equality, by Jane Latour (forthcoming) Voices from This Long Brown Land Oral Recollections of Owens Valley Lives and Manzanar Pasts Jane Wehrey Palgrave macmillan * VOICES FROM THIS LONG BROWN LAND ©Jane Wehrey, 2006. Permission to quote from Barry Lopez in "Mapping the Real Geography," is granted by Harpers Magazine, copyright November 1989. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. First published in 2006 by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN"IM 175 FifrhAvenue, New York, N.Y. 10010 and Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire, England RG21 6XS Companies and representatives throughout the world. PALGRAVE MACMILLAN is the global academic imprint of the Palgrave Macmillan division of St. Martin's Press, LLC and ofPalgrave Macmillan Ltd. Macmillan® is a registered trademark in the United States, United Kingdom and other countries. Palgrave is a registered trademark in the European Union and other countries. ISBN 978-0-312-29541-7 ISBN 978-1-349-63573-3 (eBook) DOI 10.1007/978-1-349-63573-3 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Voices from this long brown land : oral recollections of Owens Valley lives and Manzanar pasts I [edited by] Jane Wehrey. p. cm.-(Palgrave studies in oral history) Includes bibliographical references and index. 1. Manzanar War Relocation Center-Anecdotes. 2. Manzanar War Relocation Center-Anecdotes. 3. Japanese Americans-California Owens Valley-Biography-Anecdotes. 4. Japanese Americans--evacuation and relocation, 1942-1945-Anecdotes. 5. Interviews-California Owens Valley. 6. Oral history. 7. Owens Valley (Cali£)-History- 20th century-Anecdotes. 8. Owens Valley (Calif.)-Sociallife and customs-20th century. 9. Owens Valley (Cali£)-Ethnic relations Anecdotes. 10. Owens Valley (Cali£)-Biography-Anecdotes. I. Wehrey, Jane. II. Series. F868.09V65 2006 979.4' 48053-dc22 2005049864 A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. Design by Newgen Imaging Systems (P) Ltd., Chennai, India. First edition: February 2006 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Transferred to digital printing in 2006. For my mother If one is inclined to wonder at first how so many dwellers came to be in the loneliest land that ever came out of God's hands, what they do there and why stay, one does not wonder so much after having lived there. None other than this long brown land lays such a hold on the affections. Mary Austin, The Land ofL ittle Rain, 1903 If! were now to visit another country, I would ask my local companion, before I saw any museum or library, any factory or fabled town, to walk me in the country of his or her youth, to tell me the names of things and how, traditionally, they have been fitted together in a community. I would ask for the stories, the voice of memoty over the land. Barry Lopez, "Mapping the Real Geography," 1996 Contents Acknowledgments ........................................ XU1 Introduction ............................................ . 1 ONE Nettie Roeper Fausel (1874-1968) 29 I raised some coyotes once TWO We. "Stub" Lydston (1870-1957) 37 The valley is nothin'like it was in the old days THREE Truman Buff (1906-1996) 43 That's how I spent most ofm y time, among the white people FOUR Vic Taylor (1910-2001) .. . . . . .. . . . . .. . . . . .. . . . . .. . . . .. . . . . . 59 ~ter is everything FIVE Emily Roddy (b. 1911) .................................... 79 It was a railroad hotel made ofb ox cars-everything was box cars SIX Concha Lozano Salas (1915-2003) ........................... 95 we were a close bunch ofp eople, a lot ofg ood people SEVEN Owen Cooper (b. 1916) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 109 we maintained the individuality oft he towns and the newspapers EIGHT LaVerne Reynolds Zediker (1919-1996) ....................... 123 I was what they called a real good cowgirl