This edition was created from the manuscript of the Memoirs of Ruth Hooper, as well as images from the accompanying materials contained on Western Carolina University’s Digital Collections website. As a whole manuscript, Ruth Hooper’s memoirs detail events related to her life, as well as her marriage to W. Carr Hooper. The manuscript begins by telling details of her life with W. Carr Hooper in the Philippines of the 1930s. The document also covers events related to the beginning of World War II, the couple’s time spent as prisoners in the Japanese-run Santo Tomas Internment Camp, and of the camp’s liberation in 1945 by the United States military. A vast majority of Ruth Hooper’s memoirs (including the entirety of my assigned section) relates to the details surrounding the Santo Tomas camp: through both depictions of daily life and general goings-on in the camp. Hooper’s manuscript has a unique tone of voice, which says many things about the experiences of Santo Tomas internees. Living there under Japanese control was not easy, and the amount of malnutrition in the camp was exceedingly tragic. Yet despite all of this, the Hoopers (as well as many others in the camp) were determined to make it through until their liberation day
