PSU Magazine Spring 1994

- of eleven children , Dean took responsi– bility ea rl y fo r hou ehold chores and th e care of her younger iblings, not to men tion picking apple , pea r , peaches, and strawberrie . he remembers doing laundry by heat ing water on a wood stove and pouring it into a big ga lvanized tub on the porch . After mixing in some co ld wa ter from the hose, she'd enlist her younger brothers and , she says, "We'd stomp on thtre sheets to wash th em." Dea n's chil dhood was fa irl y ·rnb le and erene. Gradu ating from Hood Ri ve r High School in 1939, she was eage r to attend college bu t her famil y had no cash to spare. With th e help of Masuo Yasui , one of the mainstay · of th e Hood Ri ve r Japanese community, D an took her first job as a domestic fo r a Cauca ian family in town . Yet she yea rned fo r furth er edu a– t ion . In 1941 , when he r high schoo l hi story teacher offered to take her to Corvalli · with his family as a li ve- in dome tic while he worked on his master' degree, Dean jumped at th e chance. It meant she too could attend O regon State Co ll ege. She worked at a loca l cannery a ll summer to ea rn the $64 she would need fo r her fir t semester's tuition . Late that fa ll , the bombing of Pea rl Harbo r brought the first of several interruptions to Dean 's higher educa tion . Though most of th e fe male Japane e Am rican tuden t immedi – ate ly left school, Dea n managed to The Sumoge family in 1954. Shinjiro and Masa Suzuki Sumoge pictured center; Mary Sumoge and Aiko Dean pictured to the right of their mother. finish the choo l year. In June he rode th e train from Corva lli to the Pinedale Assembly Center nea r Fresno to join her fa mi ly. They were then sent to the Tulelake internment camp, where Dean helped teach sixth grade and spec ial education. oon her family was moved aga in, this time to the Heart Mounta in internment camp in Wyoming, where mo ·t of them pent the du ra tion of the war. Dean taught high school English and upe rvised a Camp Fire group until she was offered a job as a dome tic in PR! G 1994 9