Nida [The Crouters’ former cook] sent us bananas, a pomolo, cigarettes, red radishes, and four baskets of big red strawberries, which we hulled and washed on the spot, eating them with sugar and milk, recklessly. I felt better after lunch than for weeks. Being better, I felt angry and wanted to go home and turn the Japanese out of my house. I hate to think of their navy taking a bath in my tub, sitting before my fireplace, and hate them for intruding. I hate them thoroughly tonight.
Natalie Crouter
(October 30, 1898 — October 15, 1985). Resident of Vigan and later Baguio in the Philippines. Interned by the Japanese with her family in Baguio, then Bilibid Prison in Manila.
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