Category: Oral History

Remembering Japanese Internment

As today marks the 80th anniversary of the Feb. 19, 1942, presidential order authorizing the internment of Americans with Japanese ancestry, I recalled an April day in 2016 in Bridgeton, NJ. On that Wednesday as spring got underway, I spent a delightful morning talking with 92-year-old Frank Hitoshi Ono.

Talking with Frank H. Ono and Japanese Internment
Mr. Ono greeted me as I arrived at his home on a Wednesday in April 2016 (Photo: Dixon)

At the time I was doing some fieldwork related to developing a program for the Seabrook Educational and Cultural Center in Cumberland County, NJ. The Center presents the stories of relocated Japanese Americans, wartime refugees, and migrant laborers to the “largest vegetable factory on earth.” As part of the research, I met with a number of people including Mr. Ono.

When Japan bombed Pearl Harbor, Mr. Ono, 18, was living in San Pedro, CA, where his family had a tuna fishing business. Worried that people of Japanese ancestry would act as spies, the United States Government ordered about 120,000 people, mostly U.S. citizens, placed in internment camps.

This forced relocation included the Ono family, the teenage college student ending up at Camp Manzanar, CA. As the war dragged on, a large-scale commercial agricultural enterprise in South Jersey, Seabrook Farms, needed employees due to the wartime labor shortage. Consequently, about 2,500 residents of the relocation centers were permitted to come to the fields of Cumberland County to help harvest crops and support processing operations. Mr. Ono’s family was in that group.

18-year-old Frank Ono at the Manzanar Relocation Center. He was working as a mailman at the camp. (Source: Ono)

After the war, Mr. Ono got a job with a radio sales and service company in Bridgeton and within a couple of years, he established his own business in Millville, the Arrow Radio & TV Sales & Service Company. As television came in and tubes gave way to transistors and other things he kept up with the times. He operated the business for about 40 years, eventually selling it when he retired in 1985.

He had many talents and hobbies, but in retirement, he focused on educating people about this period of history, and he was deeply involved with the Seabrook Educational and Cultural Center.

I thoroughly enjoyed that spring morning six years ago and still recall his rich, vivid stories. I was fortunate to have met Mr. Ono, and have the opportunity to directly learn about a different time and place in our nation’s past. It’s an experience I will never forget so as my newsfeed alerted me to the 80th anniversary of Japanese Internment the conversation from some years earlier was still fresh in my mind. As Mr. Ono remarked, this is a story that more people need to know, and I was thankful that he shared the accounts and his photos with me.

Frank Hitoshi Ono, 97, of Bridgetown passed away on Sunday, September 5, 2021.

For More on Seabook Village and Japanese Internment See

A photo album of the visit with Mr. Ono on Facebook

For the history of Seabrook Village see this article on the Densho Encyclopedia.

Old Digitized Somerset County Newspapers a Great Help to Genealogists and Historians

The Crisfield Times from Dec, 12, 1941 is an example of a page from the digital collection at the Somerset County Library
The Crisfield Times from Dec, 12, 1941 is an example of a page from the digital collection at the Somerset County Library

The Somerset County Library system has digitized its collection of research materials in order to make the resources more broadly and easily available to researchers.  The just released e-products include newspapers from Princess Anne and Crisfield, and records from the county court system.  The old, original microfilm was professionally scanned and software was used to allow for easy text-based searching of the collections.  This valuable addition of records for researchers joins a growing body of material from the Lower Shore.  Here is a list of some of the records groups that are now available online at the Somerset County Library.  Chick here to go the library search page.

The Crisfield Post, 1935, 1936, and 1955 – 1959

The Crisfield Times, 1907 – 1984

Maryland and Herald, 1912 – 1984

Somerset Herald 1987 – 2004

Village Herald 1827 – 1840

Administrative Accounts of Somerset County , 1685 – 1772

Judicial Records 1701 – 1792

Incorporating Oral Histories into Dynamic Public Programming Workshop

I was pleased to work with UMBC’s John Willard to present a workshop for participants in the Museum on Main Street program on May 17   As museums around the state get ready for a Smithsonian Traveling Exhibit, John and I talked to participants about the stories of communities.  Most have plenty of little-known, but intriguing stories from local tradition-bearers and they’re anxious to share them.

In our session with museum professionals and librarians from around the state we talked about the best ways to incorporate these stories into public programming using formats such as traditional exhibits, digital storytelling, publications, and  educational programs.  Here’s the way the Maryland Humanities Council described the session:  “Professional Oral Historians, John Willard and Mike Dixon, will share examples of successful projects from their past work with the Martha Ross Center for Oral History at UMBC and small museums and historical societies.”

We had a great time exploring these new opportunities with the folks getting ready for this exciting new exhibit from the Smithsonian.

Project Scholar For New Study Asking What Happens When Big Government Moves In and Families Move Out

I have just started working on an exciting new investigation that is seeking to answer questions about the impact the military has on people and communities when it uproots long-established families to create a wartime reservation.  This particular migration occurred in Harford County, Maryland, as the government established Aberdeen Proving Ground in 1917, six months after the United States entered World War I.  To create the Proving Grounds, families occupying nearly 73,000 acres were forced to make a “patriotic sacrifice” and move.  They had no choice but to quickly relocate for the “good of their country,” so hundreds were displaced, many with large farms that had been in their families for generations.

As many of the displaced and their descendants still live in the area, two local partner organizations, Harford County Public Library and Hosanna School Museum will document their stories.  Using “youth curators,” the project will collect their oral histories, documents, and photographs, as we examine their reactions and efforts to make a new life work.

The goal of this project, which is being underwritten by the Maryland Humanities Council and the Smithsonian Institute is to work with “youth curators” to help them create an exhibit that will tell this unexamined story.  So soon, thanks to the stakeholders and “the youth curators,” we’ll have a better idea of what really happened when the big government moved in, and families moved out.

I’m serving as the project scholar.  It’s always exciting to investigate the changes that have come to our communities, and I’m particularly looking forward to this youth-oriented project.