Summer of '45

I got to spend some time with World War II this week. The war itself doesn't interest me—I don't care about battles and politics. That's probably why I didn't care for history growing up. But WWII on the home front does interest me more, because it's more likely to touch on cultural history, which is what I actually like.

First, on Thursday evening, I attended an event by the Mildred Berryman Institute for LGBTIQ2S+ Utah History about queer belonging during WWII. The lecture was given by one of my professors from grad school. It was enjoyable, and I learned a lot! But I didn't stick around long after it was over, so I could go swimming.

But the more significant event was on Saturday. The Utah Historical Society had a special bus trip to Topaz, where Japanese Americans were incarcerated* during the war. It was for members of the society, but then they opened it up to staff to go along for free. A free adventure? Why wouldn't I go!?

*The camps are often called internment camps or relocation centers or evacuation centers. But these terms all downplay the morally repugnant practice of forcing American citizens and immigrants to move into camps. Incarceration camp is more commonly preferred now.

We drove down to Delta to the Topaz Museum, which opened around 2014. Even though I have two uncles who have lived in the Delta area, I had never been. There were some other people at the museum who apparently thought it was a rock museum.

Inside, they had a room set up like an original barrack would have looked like, furnished with actual items from Topaz that people had donated. 

The ironing board was made by a woman while she was incarcerated. The table and chairs were made by an old man who had been incarcerated, but he made them years later.

In the back, they had part of an original building that was meant to look like it might have originally. It had tar paper on the sides and roof, with no insulation, making it super hot or super cold. 

The back left corner has original sheetrock, but most of the rest of it has been reconstructed.

And the museum had various artifacts. It was a wordy museum, and I didn't read much, but it was a clean, modern museum with a small gift shop.

Incarcerees used to collect arrowheads

Then we got on the bus, and one of the museum guides, Scott Bassett, came with us. He showed us various homes and buildings in the Delta area that were built from old Topaz buildings, and he talked about growing up in the nearby community of Sutherland. Since my Uncle Mike used to live in Sutherland, at one of our stops, I asked him, "Do you know Mike Melville?" He said, "Oh, Mike! He's my relative." So I said, "That means we're related, because he's my uncle." We eventually determined he's my third cousin once removed, and he's in the same ward as my Uncle John in Delta. One of my colleagues was disappointed we didn't get a picture together. 

That's my third cousin once removed

We stopped at the welcoming spot for modern visitors, where there's a plaque and "Topaz" written in barbed wire. 

Then we went on the grounds of the camp. All the buildings are gone, and the artifacts are pretty picked over, but there are some building foundations, lots of leftover wood, and bits of glass and metal strewn all over the ground. It is amazing that all these things are still sitting on the desert floor after more than eighty years, though I guess that's not really all that long ago. Scott was incredibly knowledgeable about all the buildings that had been there. 

This was sewer access

This was a bowl for making mochi

There was a really cool spider on a really cool web

This was a rock garden

There were tons of old nails on the ground

Tar paper from the roofs

Window screens

The top of a bottle

The West Desert is nothing like the Pacific coast, where all the incarcerees came from

Then on the way home, I read a book that I had bought at the museum. I have actually worked on quite a few articles about Topaz for Utah Historical Quarterly, and for one of them, I came across a diary of a third-grade class, which is digitized online, and I fell in love with it. This book partly tells the story of the class journal, but it's more about day-to-day life in Topaz generally. I have included some of the entries from the journal.

I was astonished to learn they used to collect spiders because they could use their webs in gunsights!

Of course, I'm interested in the entry about Easter . . .

. . . and the Fourth of July.

Another random thing from this week. I was working an a UHQ article about Topaz, and a reference to D-Day gave me a random memory. In fifth grade, our class had a pen pal from South Korea who peppered her letter with little stickers that had small pictures with English words. We were very amused by the placement of the stickers, like "Bye now! [dinner] [dinner]." But one sentence included "D-Day" stickers. What a weird thing to put on a sticker for children! (I just asked Google Gemini about it—I know, I know, I shouldn't use AI—and it tells me that "D-Day" in Korea referred to any big event, not the 1944 event.)

***

My week wasn't all about WWII. On Tuesday, I went to our state offices because we are moving buildings. We had to finish packing before our official move this week. I've been coming to this building in Millcreek for three and a half years now, but I won't miss it. It was an old, bleak building. But I will miss being close to the Normal Ice Cream truck.

On Wednesday evening, I went on a short trail run after dark (when it was cooler) to Springhill Geologic Park. As I got there, I saw a spider making a web directly across the trail. I didn't want to ruin the spider's progress, but it seemed unreasonable to turn around just for a spider. So I was able to successfully step over the spider's web without disturbing it. And then at the end of the run, I was able to step over it again on the way back. That's four times I successfully stepped over it, since I have two legs (unlike the spider).

And I still have five stores for the Independent Bookstore Crawl. One of them was located in Smithfield, but they have lost their brick-and-mortar store for now. They announced they were at Layton Fest, a vendor fair, so I went up on Friday evening, intending to get my map stamped. Unfortunately, right as we (my mom and I) got there, there was a storm, and all the vendors had to pack up. So I'll have to get my stamp another way. (I'm thinking of going to Logan's Art Beat this coming weekend to see them.)