Margaret D'Ille Gleason: Manzanar's Chief of Community Welfare

Written in Margaret D'Ille Gleason's voice by her great-niece, Susanne Norton LaFaver. Margaret was a member of the camp staff, not an incarceree.

A life of service

• Born Margaret Lillian Matthew in Springfield, Illinois, on November 20, 1879, the first of 12 children of Methodist minister Winfield Scott Matthew and Marion Lillian Pomeroy.
• The family moved to Los Angeles in 1887, where her father was dean of the University of Southern California, and to Berkeley in 1892. He was in San Francisco for the 1906 earthquake.
• After graduating from UC Berkeley, she taught briefly, then joined the national staff of the YWCA in 1903, organizing girls' groups in eastern prep schools. Her brother introduced her to a Berkeley freshman, Ralph P. Merritt — later Manzanar's director.
• From 1908 she spent ten years in Japan as a secretary of the National YWCA, coming to love and admire the Japanese people and culture.
• From 1918 to 1920 she did relief work for the Red Cross in Siberia, based in Vladivostok.
• Back home she worked in the YWCA's finance division and in 1927 became General Secretary of the Oakland YWCA.
• At 56, in October 1935, she married Arthur D'Ille, a diplomat she had met in Siberia; they lived on an avocado ranch in Vista until his death. She then did social work for the California State Relief Administration — "visiting the poor people living in abandoned boats at Hunter's Point."

Manzanar

At 63 she came to Manzanar as Chief of Community Welfare and head counselor; her years in Japan helped her understand Japanese culture and Japanese Americans.

• The office in Block 1 had a cupboard, two long tables, benches, a screened corner for private interviews, and one typewriter — no desks, chairs, files or telephone.
• Staff met daily in 1942. Harry and Lillian Matsumoto, superintendents of the Children's Village — the only orphanage in any war relocation center, home to up to 101 children — taught a course in social work.
• Language was a constant challenge: many older people read only Japanese, most young people only English, so the staff mixed both.

Families under strain

The hardest problems were family conflicts between old Japanese ideas and young Japanese Americans, made worse by crowded quarters. Grandparents wanted to control children's discipline, manners, food and sleep; parents' say over their children's marriages grew stronger; young people lived under constant watch, with no quiet space for homework. The staff tried to stand between, preserving the best of both ways and preparing families for a future "on the basis of reality and not prejudice."

Christmas 1942

On Thanksgiving Day 1942, her old acquaintance Ralph Merritt became project director; she waved him over at the staff dinner, a familiar face. He later called her "the right person in the right place at the right moment."

On Sunday, December 6, 1942, long-building grievances broke into the "riot" — no one person to blame, no single cause — ending that night in gunfire that wounded and killed men. Afterward Manzanar became "a dead city": people stayed in their barracks, no children played, no lights burned.

Two weeks later, as Merritt listened to instructions to "get tough," Margaret asked whether he had forgotten his Christian upbringing and what Christmas meant. A warehouse held presents sent by churches and friends for the more than 1,000 children in camp. She suggested sending crews to the mountains for Christmas trees to set up, lit, before each barrack, handing out the presents on Christmas Eve, and a party at the Children's Village — whose children, from babies to teenagers, the Army had gathered from Alaska to San Diego as "security risks."

On Christmas Eve, Margaret, Merritt and his wife, Varina, walked through the dark camp to the Children's Village, sat on the floor Japanese-style with the children, watched a Nativity play, and welcomed Santa Claus. As they sang carols, they heard more voices outside: children from across the camp, American citizens of Japanese ancestry, standing in the moonlight singing along. They called out "Merry Christmas" to one another. Under the stars, Merritt turned to her: "Peace has come again to Manzanar."

Later years

At 67 she met George Gleason, a former YMCA secretary in Japan, who visited Manzanar. They married on February 9, 1946, and she spent eight years in Los Angeles among old and new friends, with trips across the continent and into Canada. From her two marriages she gained three stepdaughters and six grandchildren. Her last four years were spent as an invalid, but her life, she said, stayed rich in love and friendships around the world.

Her message

Protect civil liberties and stand up for one another. Respect people of every ethnicity — "at one time or another, we were all immigrants to this country." And keep practicing freedom and justice for all.

Sources

Based on "Margaret D'Ille Gleason," one of the ID booklets of Manzanar National Historic Site, National Park Service, written by park rangers with the people profiled and their families, here written by her great-niece, Susanne Norton LaFaver; the booklet's first-person account is retold here, with short quotations. The booklet closes with "Wind and Dust," a poem written at Manzanar in 1943 by George Nishimura, age 16, which is not reproduced. For more on the ten camps, see the Park Service's "War Relocation Centers."